Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To go back to the issue of procurement, it is one of the most difficult areas in which to move away from national approaches because in the European context we are now obliged, and people find it cumbersome at times, when declaring that the procurement is of a certain scale, to go onto this very elaborate system. You will often find people saying that prevents small businesses from competing because it becomes so complicated by pan-European rules. You suspect that as regards the barrier in Canada, the various federal entities are not willing to take on such a superstructure, which would be necessary to really open up public procurement. Is there pressure on the different parts of the federation to have a common procurement strategy right across all states? Has that come about through the federation agreement or are we still looking at a separate market in Quebec from that in British Columbia or wherever it is someone might be trying to enter the market?