Government Operations committee  Not necessarily, no.

Government Operations committee  Yes, really.

Government Operations committee  Based on what expertise, Mr. Angus?

Government Operations committee  The National Post, or allegations in a plaintiff court file?

Government Operations committee  On the military side, the potential for SMEs on these contracts is in the offsets coming from foreign manufacturers. We've insisted that for every dollar we give a foreign manufacturer, the manufacturer has to reinvest a dollar in the aerospace and defence industry. This is important—aerospace and defence, not any industry, not any investment.

Government Operations committee  Absolutely. Thousands of contracts are handled by the department, some of them large, but many not so large. They are handled by the department at arm's length, thankfully, from the minister and his office. When this came up I requested a briefing from my then deputy, Mr. Marshall.

Government Operations committee  We can talk about the C-17s and Hercules aircraft, since those contracts have been signed. In those two cases, National Defence had clearly identified what materiel it wanted to have, which is to taxpayers' benefit. In the past, what I've seen is that it could take years and years to try to develop a device or object that we wanted to buy.

Government Operations committee  The C-17 is a nice segue from the question from Madame Bourgeois. It's a good example of smart procurement. National Defence identified what it needed, and we were able to zero in on that aircraft once it was obvious there were no similar types of aircraft available for us to purchase.

Government Operations committee  We're talking about military equipment.

Government Operations committee  In the past 12 months?

Government Operations committee  During the year just ended—

Government Operations committee  We're talking about billions of dollars since, as you know, we signed the contract for the Hercules aircraft.

Government Operations committee  We'll get the exact figure for you.

Government Operations committee  Yes.

Government Operations committee  I assure you all the more willingly since we created the Office of Small and Medium Enterprises in the summer of 2006 out of a concern to maintain favourable circumstances for small- and medium-size businesses across Canada. There is even an office in Quebec whose taskor responsibility is to anticipate small and medium enterprises and to help them understand how to do business with us.