Public Accounts committee  We have evidence that decisions were made more quickly than usual.

Public Accounts committee  That is a possibility, and Granby Police is aware of the facts. We communicated with them during our audit, and now that our report has been made public, they can read it and contact us if they have any questions.

Public Accounts committee  We did not share that with the RCMP. We very rarely communicate with the RCMP before our reports are made public. Usually, once the report is made public, the police services can read it and communicate with us. However, we have identified another situation that worries me a lot.

Public Accounts committee  That is correct. I don't think there's any reason to believe that the results of our audit are limited to McKinsey. I would expect to find that the rules are not followed in the awarding of other professional services contracts and procurement contracts in general.

Public Accounts committee  I am always worried when a contract has been awarded non-competitively and the justification is not sound. A non-competitive process should be an exception. Therefore, it is very important that the justification for using such a process be sound. The fact that 71% of contracts are awarded non-competitively concerns me.

Public Accounts committee  The original strategy dates back to 2018. I am happy to see that they're working on completing it. I think they're expecting to have it done in 2024. We continue to note in the report that the CRTC is not yet included in that strategy. We believe that the strategy should have a much more comprehensive look at resources needed across the federal government to fight cybercrime.

Public Accounts committee  I think it's important to note that we didn't look at the actual responses or investigations of crimes. We didn't investigate the RCMP's hiring practices. What they did cite for us was that, oftentimes when it comes to cybercrime, specialized skill is in limited supply in the country.

Public Accounts committee  As I mentioned earlier, I think a place to start would be to make it easier for Canadians to report potential cybercrime with that one single portal or funnel. Then we could allow the public service to have the tools and the skills that it needs to forward those to the department best equipped to address the crime.

Public Accounts committee  Paragraph 47 refers to an investigation that was conducted by the CRTC to determine whether anyone had violated Canada's anti-spam legislation. The CRTC seized cellphones and information. During the course of the investigation, it learned that a police force was conducting a criminal investigation.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, it's Granby Police. The CRTC contacted it and provided it with electronic information. Then the police service informed the CRTC that it would be subject to a search warrant. The CRTC then informed the police service that it had quickly erased the information on the cellphones and that they had been returned to their owners.

Public Accounts committee  This is one of those lapses in stewardship of public funds by the foundation. The foundation had a process in place to look at milestone monitoring, and there they found out that some organizations were submitting expenditures that were not eligible. Rightfully so, they cancelled the contract.

Public Accounts committee  That would be a question to ask the foundation. At times, they did reduce the funding received, but this is really a lapse in the board oversight on managing prudent funds.

Public Accounts committee  I will see if Sami wants to jump in. We were looking at whether or not they had the ability to respond to the quantity of potential reports of cybercrime. There are many parties involved in cybercrime at the federal government level, and then add in that there are other layers of governments, law enforcement and the private sector.

Public Accounts committee  It's a tough one to tackle. As I mentioned, there are other layers of government, other layers of law enforcement that are not federal and the private sector that also fill in and have responsibilities to monitor and fight cybercrime. One of the gaps we did see was that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunication Commission, which has the responsibility for enforcing Canada's anti-spam legislation, is not included in the national cybercrime strategy.

Public Accounts committee  I think it's important to say that the procurement rules in the federal public service encourage a competitive contract at the outset. A competitive contract should help improve the chances that you get better value for money when you bring more players to the table and that you get better services.