Government Operations committee  I can look it up here....

Government Operations committee  Yes: it's WEConnect International and WBE Canada. They are the ones who go through and have the different certifications. It's very helpful. Something we might want to consider, when we go and look at that certification, is that we try not to create a difference between the U.S

Government Operations committee  It's been going on for a number of years in the States too. That program started in 2011. It originally was initiated in 1994, so you have a bit of history there. I think they've had a chance to work it out. I think there's a lot to be learned rather than starting from scratch.

Government Operations committee  Annette, maybe I can take a stab at that. I think there's a great example in the report of Accenture. It talks about how, in this case, as a private sector company, they've combined all of those aspects within their supplier program. I know that even at GE we do a lot where we

Government Operations committee  Sure. I think in the growth council we certainly spoke a lot about how, again, some programs that could be done by government have been done different levels of government, almost like a concierge program that has helped bring together businesses that are targeted to scale. The

Government Operations committee  Yes, we certainly heard in some of the round tables, particularly from the U.S. women who were participating, that there was some risk, as there often is, in various programs of people gaming or working their way around the system. Based on that and the amount of work we have don

Government Operations committee  Certainly. We could look at that to see if it's documented in those minutes.

Government Operations committee  I don't know the answer offhand. I think we did find that in the States there was some good data that the government had and through the women-owned businesses, the people who have participated in the federal women-owned business program. That's why it's driving data collection.

Government Operations committee  I would just add that I would hate to delay progress in terms of moving forward on the idea of set-asides because of the red tape, but rather use the execution and the implementation of a set-aside program, perhaps to drive the reduction in the complexity around whatever new prog

Government Operations committee  I would simply say that the tendency is for women to build networks among women. One of the things we really want to encourage is that we're not looking to necessarily create accelerators just for women. We actually want to do whatever we can to encourage women to network in safe

Government Operations committee  —so that we broaden their network.

Government Operations committee  Correct.

Government Operations committee  The Consul General in New York, when she spoke to us in one of our round tables down there, gave some excellent examples of the programs that they are running in New York City for Canadians and for Canadian women. That did allow, to your point, safe networking, and we think that'

Government Operations committee  Thanks, Annette. I would like to thank the committee for accommodating the logistics and allowing me to participate by telepresence. I'll talk briefly about targeted procurement. Procurement programs are really a very important way for growth-oriented businesses to access capi