Industry committee  I actually do, yes. I think it's important for the providers of cloud infrastructures to understand what's expected—that we take protection of information and of privacy very seriously in Canada. I think that should indeed be a part of the strategy, yes.

Industry committee  I think it will become increasingly a barrier if we don't find innovative ways to provide more bandwidth. You can look at some trending, say, 50 years from now, or even five years from now, and see that we're not going to be able to afford the bandwidth we need. But we've been very good at innovating within the telco space.

Industry committee  The report card does reflect a comparison with our peer OECD countries. While we are improving in some measures, other countries are improving quicker than we are, so our relative grade has stayed as a D rating overall. There is some real issue there with the ability of our SMEs to adopt ICT and what impact that has on our country.

Industry committee  It's interesting, because risk aversion—we talk about a culture of risk aversion—is one of the things we plan to spend more time looking at. It does have a real impact. Our estimate is that we make $7,000 less per Canadian as compared with our U.S. counterparts because of our productivity measures.

Industry committee  Yes. It's interesting why Canada would compare differently to the U.S. Andrew Sharpe and CSLS came out with another report related to that today. I haven't had a chance to read it, but if you look it up, you might find it. We've speculated that because a lot of development came out of the U.S.

Industry committee  I haven't read the specifics of the new auction. I was more familiar with the public safety broadband auction from a couple of years ago. I think if it is done right, and if you can bring down total cost of usage for SMEs—because cost tends to be a big concern for a lot of SMEs, so if you can do anything that brings down cost for them and that lowers complexity and offers them more viable solutions, it would be an improvement.

Industry committee  We had a great report about a year and a half ago that looked at how Canadian SMEs can really access global markets through digital technology. There were certain best practices that came out of that. I can certainly provide the title and a link to the report, if you would like that.

Industry committee  One of the biggest things they mention in that report is the need for a Canadian organization, for example, to have a visible online presence that's well respected, so that other countries can look to it and recognize it as a valuable business. You wouldn't just open up your business and say you're going to work globally.

Industry committee  The vast majority would be in the U.S. We do a lot of work with chief information officers, CIOs, from across the country, and the issue of creating a cloud for Canada, hosted in Canada, is of paramount importance to them. The vast majority of cloud infrastructure tends to be in the U.S.; however, there are some providers in Canada that are very close, if not there, with a true Canadian cloud offering.

Industry committee  I think if you were to develop a policy, a set of guidelines or principles would be helpful for the SME community, especially those that are in supply chains for things like aerospace, defence, some of those national security relevant industries. I think a set of guidelines would be quite helpful.

Industry committee  I did read his article in The Huffington Post. I do know some of the words that were written by Mr. Geist. I think it's a complex set of issues. There's certainly improvement that can be made, but it's a complex set of issues in Canada. We looked at the issue internally. We think there are elements of culture in Canada in how we operate the systems that come into play.

Industry committee  I think your last point was very important. It is more about government partnering. I think government needs to set the stage, to set the ecosystem to help business be successful, but ultimately, they need to be the drivers of their own success. Certainly, there are areas for improvement in coordination and communication.

Industry committee  Currently, we have a local host provider for a lot of our IT services, so we do have some internal, but most would be a local provider, yes, within Canada.

Industry committee  I want to thank the committee and the chair for asking me to provide my perspectives today as well—especially via this medium of video conference—on this important topic. We've done a lot of work in this area, and plan to do much more, so it's our privilege to be here today. As a not-for-profit organization, we call ourselves a think tank, which sort of conjures up the image of us sitting behind closed doors and thinking up solutions to some of the issues and challenges facing the country.