Government Operations committee  Sorry, I'm trying to get to the point that the conversations I would have had with cabinet colleagues on this would have been in a context of approaching our whole-of-government approach to corporate wrongdoing, which included consultations both on the integrity regime and on the potential of having a DPA instrument, if you will.

Government Operations committee  I feel that that would be covered by cabinet confidence.

Government Operations committee  I will say neither yes nor no because I'm very, very rigid on my confidence in cabinet confidentiality.

Government Operations committee  My understanding is that we have entered into an administrative agreement with this company while there are criminal proceedings ongoing.

Government Operations committee  I don't know the answer.

Government Operations committee  Can I clarify? I'm not sure it's necessarily a matter of a company's applying for this. It's whether PSPC would initiate and require a company to have one of these agreements to continue contracting with the Government of Canada.

Government Operations committee  Again, in the spirit of consulting with the public, we consulted on any changes that the public thought there should be. We published a report on what we heard in terms of what those changes could be. We then went away and drafted a new ineligibility and suspension policy. Then the second consultation was putting that out for comment by the public to get any further feedback and to see if it reflected or addressed any concerns or potential betterment of the policy.

Government Operations committee  I suspect it will be, yes.

Government Operations committee  As I said, we're reviewing the feedback we got on the draft policy. I would say in a month-ish, we will finalize the final policy. Would that be accurate, about four to six weeks?

Government Operations committee  There is the position of the registrar of ineligibility and suspension—I might have reversed those two; it's either suspension and ineligibility or ineligibility and suspension—to whom I've delegated complete authority to make these decisions. The minister does not sign off on debarment decisions in this regime.

Government Operations committee  Yes.

Government Operations committee  It's $2.8 million. That's our estimation, yes.

Government Operations committee  It's billion.

Government Operations committee  The big picture here is that when we came into government we encountered a situation where our science infrastructure was dilapidated. That's probably a kind word to put to it. It was very much in need of significant investment, both in terms of the structural infrastructure, the buildings themselves, and in terms of the equipment our scientists were using.

Government Operations committee  What I will say, though, is that the severity of the offence will be one of the factors taken into consideration by the registrar. Bill, can you...?