Government Operations committee  The total package of work to be covered under the contract is for a potential total of $1.5 billion. Every time there is base maintenance work per year and every time there is a new work requirement, at that time we'll ask the contractor to do it, but we will have obtained the to

Government Operations committee  No.

Government Operations committee  This is quite a normal practice. With requests for proposal or tenders, we have an estimated value of work to be done that could cover 10, 15, or 20 years. We don't have all the specifics up front, so we ask the companies to provide us with level and effort prices for the first f

Government Operations committee  First of all, in terms of Consulting and Audit Canada, the consulting part does not handle any more contracting. If there is a requirement for that contracting to be done by department, it's being done within the acquisitions branch of Public Works.

Government Operations committee  There are many procedures and rules and policies that have been put in place. First of all, related to services, through the transformation initiative that the department is leading, it is putting in place a huge instrument by which you will regroup all different types of service

Government Operations committee  Yes.

Government Operations committee  Most of the contracts that comprise business volume are related to services. Government departments do have delegated authorities to procure their own services to a certain limit.

Government Operations committee  Most of it.

Government Operations committee  Between services and goods that governments departments do by themselves, I will have to verify that.

Government Operations committee  It's not very much. The Minister of Public Works does have the authority to buy goods, and it's the Minister of Public Works who does delegate up to $25,000 for the goods. For the services, it's optional, and the delegation is much higher and is being provided by....

Government Operations committee  I think there's a certain risk there.

Government Operations committee  Yes.

Government Operations committee  With regard to the 1% figure, if you look through the applications or the complaints filed to the trade tribunal over the last five years, you will see that we have 330 related to that. At the end, some are accepted or rejected after being heard. We found a little more than 60 of

Government Operations committee  This, of course, is a big “if”. The basis of trade agreements is to promote trade and exchange between countries--

Government Operations committee  I think it's fair to say that we could expect that there could be some consequences.