The Globe and Mail reports in its Monday edition that federal officials are working on a plan to direct more cloud computing contracts toward Canadian companies after receiving strong industry pushback over an existing competition to short-list a small number of American multinationals for similar work. The Globe's Bill Curry writes that when asked about the internal criticism revealed in government documents, Shared Services Canada said the department "is in the initial planning stage for the development of a parallel system" to the current competition, "which would be focused on Canadian cloud providers." The government claims industry feedback and consultation are key parts of its efforts to transform its IT infrastructure. Craig McLellan, who runs Canadian cloud-provider ThinkOn Inc., said recent trade tensions between Canada and the United States appear to have inspired a change in approach from the feds that he expects will start to play out after the election. Shared Services Canada is in the middle of the multistage competition that would result in the creation of a preapproved list of a small number of companies that departments can work with for cloud computing. They are: Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Oracle.