Government Operations committee  It's the value of the contract. If you contract me for a project that's worth $10 million, the liability clause will be for a maximum of $10 million.

Government Operations committee  The other thing that's interesting about it is—

Government Operations committee  It is a mechanism that scares away a multitude of firms in our sector. They simply will not bid on the contract. Often they get really upset when they participate in the first couple of phases of an RFP, the invitation to qualify, and they're going through the triple R phase, whi

Government Operations committee  I haven't seen it. That doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

Government Operations committee  I've laughed a couple of times because.... We talk about references. I'm waiting for the first government contract to come out that says we need an artificial intelligence platform developer or application developer with 15 or 20 years' experience. We joke around when we have mee

Government Operations committee  You want the best. You're the biggest. You're the government and you want the best possible talent to come in and do this work for you, but there are implications further downstream. There are graduates coming out of Ottawa U., Carleton U., and Algonquin. They can never get work

Government Operations committee  What you want to be doing is calling—

Government Operations committee  I think the concept needs to be earlier engagement with industry. It's hard for me to set out a procurement to access an innovative product if I haven't engaged with the industry that delivers this innovative product. Sometimes before the procurement process even starts, we've m

Government Operations committee  Steven mentioned risk aversion, which I believe is probably at an all-time high in the bureaucracy. Nobody wants to be in the newspapers. You have all-time high risk aversion and a calling on the government to start experimenting and piloting. If you want to help an SME, bring

Government Operations committee  Thank you for the question. We talk about jurisdictions. If we look back, we're seeing some jurisdictions doing this the right way, and they haven't been doing it for 10 years. For Estonia, the catalyst was the fact they got hacked by a neighbouring country. They said, “We real

Government Operations committee  I think you're starting to see it. There have been a couple of blockchain pilots at the federal level that are either awarded or under way. You're starting to see the application of new technologies to federal frameworks. From a purely procurement standpoint, how are we going a

Government Operations committee  However, we are seeing departments and PSPC working on contracting for pilots, contracting for experimentation, and starting to do it. We are seeing it.

Government Operations committee  I recently had a conversation with a bunch of members about having the right person or the right solution in place, and when the contract runs out, the government will go back and RFP it again. In certain circumstances there's an opportunity to roll over and add another two years

Government Operations committee  It's a balancing act. If you are transparent and up front about it, you'll say, “We are going to run this pilot at this amount of money with the option of doubling down and running an extended contract.” That's part of the procurement on the front end. If the pilot fails, then I

Government Operations committee  I'll start. I don't disagree with Kirsten in terms of bringing in the right talent, although reports suggest that Canada has some of the most talented people within the public sector, with more than 60% having university or college degrees. We've got a ton of smart people who rea