Thank you to the witnesses today.
Mr. Chambers, I'd like to ask you some questions.
Back in September, I asked Deputy Minister Bill Matthews about an audit of the facilities maintenance services. It found that your team didn't have the ability to complete a value-for-money analysis on outsourcing and on different private for-profit contractors. I think this is one of the base issues that we're trying to get into in this study today.
We've seen the stock of military housing decrease in recent years and the backlog for maintenance requests balloon. Buildings are being left under-repaired until they are falling apart and then they need to be demolished. For-profit contractors are doing rush jobs without robust oversight, instead of using the public servants they used to use to serve Canadians in the armed forces.
I've heard a lot from Canadian Forces members about the systemic challenges within your department's service delivery, the tracking of contracts, the contracting authorities involved, and feedback from service members on whether repairs are at the standards that they need to be.
Since that 2018 audit of contracting for facilities maintenance services, I'd like to know what is being done to fix that to modernize your department.