In that report, it suggests that:
Given the urgency created by the pandemic, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat encouraged government organizations to focus on results while [still] demonstrating due diligence and controls on expenditures. To support this direction, the [secretariat] invoked exceptions so that certain procurements were not subject to the provisions of the trade agreements and the Government Contract Regulations and allowed for the consideration of a non-competitive approach to address urgent needs.
I think this is evidenced as a really important piece that the Auditor General has focused on in her report in direct relation to the fact that the public service is losing funding, and then the vulnerability of the government to outsourced contracts increases.
There's a direct relationship between how you fund the public service and how vulnerable the government is to fraudulent, private, outsourced contracts. It's clear in the CBSA instance, for example, that they were unable to secure the IT technology here in Canada or within the public service. They were forced to outsource a really critical and important piece of an app to these contractors, who had layers upon layers of subcontracts within which we're still discovering the mess that exists today. This extreme loss of funding, this extremely ineffective use of money, was very clear in her report.
Do you agree with me that there is a direct relationship between not properly funding our public service and creating vulnerabilities in procuring the kind of technology or the kinds of skills that are actually needed by the government?
Do you see the relationship there?