Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I do want to just summarize the seriousness of today's meeting and how important it is that Canadians get an understanding of how procurement works in Canada. One of the most shocking admissions today, I think, was by Ms. Foster and Amazon Web Services in relation to the fact that you could not be held legally liable or responsible for a contract or task authorization held by Dalian if you were in fact a customer of that company.
This is the first instance of this happening in our committee. I think this is of the utmost importance for our analysts, our study and our report to investigate, in addition to subcontractors, any customers of Dalian and GC Strategies for the production of work related to ArriveCAN. It's a serious issue that I believe requires serious accountability, considering Amazon Web Services are in the top three financial records, according to the Auditor General, at $7.9 million.
This is something that I think the government should be aware of and seized with. It is of the utmost importance that they understand that accountability mechanisms, by and large set to protect the public service and value for money, are not being met. Should a company act like Amazon look at Dalian, do no assessment of that company...which was admitted in this testimony? In addition to having no oversight of the companies they take on, with knowledge that Dalian had in fact had a responsibility to CBSA, they then agreed to continue to work as a customer, knowing that the potential for amendments to task authorizations and the cost effectiveness of those task authorizations could change, ballooning the cost.
The Auditor General makes it very clear in this report that the value for money for Canadians was not achieved, particularly by way of manipulation of the task authorization process. This is quite serious. It is one that I think will require further investigation.
Mr. Chair, I think any information that can be supplied to this committee in relation to the testimony today on the contract between Dalian and Amazon Web Services would be of great importance to this committee and our study on behalf of Canadians on value for dollar.
Would you be willing to submit the contract that you had between Dalian and your corporation, for the purpose of our study, in understanding how or what work you did on behalf of Dalian and its total? Would you be willing to submit the contract?