As you know, Mr. Poilievre, last April we opened offices throughout the country to support small- and medium-sized businesses.
As I mentioned earlier, these offices have already had some success. In fact, they get over 500 calls a month.
We found out that the vast majority of the 800 companies that have registered to do business with the Government of Canada since the announcement was made last April are SMEs.
Since you are speaking about the Ottawa region, I would mention that there are many smaller companies here. They were very concerned about the fact that the changes to the supply process would have a particularly negative impact on them.
Over the summer and fall, as you know, I made some adjustments to the approach regarding the calls for tenders. We eliminated some of the irritants for some of these small companies, for example the one that required what is known as the reverse option. So the reverse option was eliminated. It was an irritant for a number of these small firms. We worked together with a third party, the Conference Board, which sounded out these companies and took an interest in their views. A number of meetings were held here and elsewhere in the country—but particularly here, since you were speaking about Ottawa—in order to find out about their concerns. I know that we have found solutions to the vast majority of the problems they raised.