The Commission shall ensure a balanced participation of Member States’ representatives and relevant provider organisations, user associations, inter-governmental and non-governmental organisations as well as representatives of indigenous and local communities in the implementation of this Regulation.

21. Recognises the potential role of the intellectual property and patent system in promoting innovation, transfer and dissemination of technology to the mutual advantage of stakeholders, providers, holders and users of genetic resources, their derivatives, and of associated traditional knowledge in a manner conducive to welfare and development, while emphasising the necessity of preventing the adverse effects of the IPR and patent system on indigenous peoples’ and local communities’ application of traditional knowledge, their laws, practices and knowledge system and their ability to use, develop, create and protect their knowledge in re ...[+++]lation to genetic resources; points out that, under certain circumstances, contracts between the parties may be identified by indigenous peoples or local communities as a more feasible solution to share benefits and to protect their interests while preserving the environment and preventing social and economic harm, e.g. by means of safeguard clauses;

5. Recognises the potential role of the intellectual property and patent system in promoting innovation, transfer and dissemination of technology to the mutual advantage of stakeholders, providers, holders and users of genetic resources, their derivatives, and of associated traditional knowledge in a manner conducive to welfare and development, while emphasising the necessity of preventing the adverse effects of the IPR and patent system on indigenous peoples’ and local communities’ application of traditional knowledge, their laws, practices and knowledge system and their ability to use, develop, create and protect their knowledge in relation to genetic resources; reiterates that, against the background of its recent resoluti ...[+++]on on the patenting of essentially biological processes, especially in the area of breeding, excessively broad patent protection can hamper innovation and progress and become detrimental to small and medium breeders by blocking access to animal and plant genetic resources; points out that, under certain circumstances, contracts between the parties may be identified by indigenous peoples or local communities as a more feasible solution to share benefits and to protect their interests while preserving the environment and preventing social and economic harm, e.g. by means of safeguard clauses;

Mr. Ken Sunquist: Canadian Company Capabilities, which is the larger Industry Canada database of about 50,000 companies, feeds in.Both SourceCAN and ourselves would use The Chair: Let me be really precise on this, please.

Companies must register in our supplier registration index, which is part of the Contracts Canada service.

For the second and third contracts there was a list of pre-approved suppliers, but government rules and regulations would indicate that there should have been a competition amongst those pre-approved suppliers.