Public Accounts committee  If you don't mind, Mr. Chairman, I will allow Madam Meredith to answer, since she is chairing the procurement oversight committee.

Public Accounts committee  Go ahead.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Ms. Fraser. We didn't wait to conduct a review. The Auditor General told us that it was important to determine whether there were any other potential conflicts of interest. So we essentially took a sample. Moreover, the person responsible for the file is here. We started with 500 contracts.

Public Accounts committee  I don't have that figure, but I'll be pleased to try to find it for you. We're going to see what the limits of my system are. I understand your question: you want to understand the ratio.

Public Accounts committee  I'd like to say briefly—

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chairman, I can give you some statistics on that. I don't know how much work that will require; so it would perhaps be a little unfair to promise that you'll be receiving them in one or two weeks. I know what you want. I'm going to take steps to provide them, and I believe that this information will be useful to me as well.

Public Accounts committee  No, not in the vendor performance policy. Frankly, I understand your point. The way we would look at it is on a one-off basis, but frankly, I would never diminish or ignore the value of also giving a signal. The quantum is important, but it's also to be understood, outside and inside, that situations that are not correct will not be ignored.

Public Accounts committee  I will go back to the earlier point I made, Mr. Chairman, that the vendor performance policy allows us to take measures, including barring of a company for a period of time. It has been done in the past for certain contracting activities. It's not only about forbidding a company from operating; there can be other measures as well, but it can go as high as barring or preventing the company from operating for a period of time.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you for the question. This element has been picked up by the Auditor General, and rightly so. A new disclosure policy came out in 2004. Before that, we were disclosing against another policy. We were doing it, but no question about it, there was confusion in the department on the requirement to disclose task authorizations versus the full value of the contract.

Public Accounts committee  It varies, and there's no simple answer. Let me explain. It varies between goods and services. As an example, going from memory, the delegation between our minister and the department for services is up to $2 million to that department, to that minister. That delegation to that department can be brought down.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you for the question. I will give a two-level answer. The first and very direct one is that following the work we carry out, if an audit of the contract shows that the billing was done inaccurately, we will take action to recoup the money. That's just the way it is. If, for instance, we have paid a consultant for work done, which was asked for and was carried out and we're satisfied with it, but the authority for it was not very clear, we're not going to recoup that money.

Public Accounts committee  I was simply going to start by saying that this is out of the regulations we have and the guidance we take from the Treasury Board. I don't want to start putting it on someone else, but those are essentially the parameters we're given to execute. This is not a policy set by the department.

Public Accounts committee  We have various procurement tools. We call them that. I don't want to bore you with the terminology, because it can be pretty technical, but you probably have heard of something called a standing offer. If it's a standing offer, if I just give you that as a for instance, it says so: standing offer.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, thank you for your question. I refer often to intelligent risk-taking, which is essentially the point you're making references to. Mr. Chairman, in the department, because of the recent history around it, our people can be quite cautious, and frankly, they are cautious for the right reasons.

Public Accounts committee  You've probably had the pleasure of meeting Shahid Minto, who was with the department before and through a selection process has become the ombudsman for the department. He has a team with him. He reports directly to the minister; he does not report to me. Administratively, he's part of the department, so we have a relationship through service level agreements for HR management, financial management, and things of that nature.