Government Operations committee  Unless we are about to divest ourselves of crown lands, Mr. Chair, we do not put a value on them. The closest we have come is when we have to assess all of the liabilities. We have done, for example, a full assessment of the liabilities for contaminated lands or buildings. We did undertake an initiative a few years back, exactly as you suggest, to do a valuation of all of the assets held by the Government of Canada.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, there are some instances, and this goes back to my previous incarnation as the Secretary of the Treasury Board, not in this current function. I can give you an answer but the specific answer would actually be coming from the Treasury Board Secretariat. After 2000, both the sources of funds as well as the liabilities were put into the Public Sector Pension Investment Board.

Government Operations committee  The goal is in fact to get as close to 100% as possible, recognizing that in some instances there are some people.... This is for direct deposit in bank accounts, so if you do not have a bank account or if you do not have access to a financial institution, there are some provisions for the government to be able to provide you with the money in a cheque form.

Government Operations committee  The responsibility of Public Works is to manage the procurement of the advertising agency and the placement of the media at the request, and according to the media plan, of the department or organization. The funds, as the member indicated, are actually allocated to each department and it is up to each department to manage the content according to the government's communications policy.

Government Operations committee  I think, Mr. Chair, we would have to get back to you on that because my understanding is that the total Government of Canada advertising, centrally funded, is $65 million.

Government Operations committee  The departments, however, can also allocate from within their own funding. Again, that question should be directed to the Department of Natural Resources.

Government Operations committee  With regard to the first contract that was mentioned for Arup, it was in fact a sole-source contract that was accorded to the company. It was part of a subcontract that had been competitively won by PricewaterhouseCoopers to help in the definition of the design and engineering elements.

Government Operations committee  The amount requested in the supplementary estimates of $5.7 million is to provide office space for the pension administration, now that it has been consolidated. This amount is listed separately because it will be charged to the superannuation account and the pension fund. So it is a chargeable amount.

Government Operations committee  We have had integrity measures for the procurement processes for some time, but the last set of changes we made were in July 2012, when we added a set of infractions where a bidder would be considered ineligible to do business with Public Works following a conviction. I can give you a sense of what some of those offences would be: if they're found to be convicted of fraud against the government; frauds under the Financial Administration Act; payment of a contingency fee to a person to whom the Lobbying Act applies.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, we do not count the ones that have potentially not applied. In fact what we have received is a number of letters from companies that have indicated that they have not applied to us because they knew that the provisions, once applied, would render them ineligible. What I can say is that we have in certain instances found about a dozen companies, I would say, when we were about to sign the contract, that would be non-compliant.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, we would have to get back to you with that information. We would be in a position to do that for the data for which we hold the information, which is what Public Works would have.

Government Operations committee  I really would not want to venture a guess at this point, because consultancy contracts and expenditures vary quite significantly from year to year.

Government Operations committee  At the request of the committee, we can do that.

Government Operations committee  All right.

Government Operations committee  The quotes you read were the ones that I was going to use. It is highly unusual for an Auditor General's report to have so many positive elements and so many positive quotes. We were quite happy, if anybody could be happy with an Auditor General's report. For us, it was an excellent report card.