The amendment as proposed would open up the complaint to any person. Given that there are no consequences or protection really being afforded to the person who is making the complaint, it doesn't necessarily raise the same issues that were raised under the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act.
It is certainly correct that it would open the door to foreign suppliers making complaints to the procurement auditor. Just on that point, I think it's important for the committee to understand what types of complaints the procurement auditor can address. They're really complaints that are only going to be made by suppliers, because the complaints that a person can make or that the procurement auditor can actually deal with are outlined in proposed section 22.1, paragraphs (3)(b) and (c) on page 190. So we're talking about complaints with respect to compliance with the government contracts regulations, if the value of the contract is under the thresholds that are set out in the Agreement on Internal Trade, because over those thresholds the complaint mechanism would be to the Canadian International Trade Tribunal.
The other is complaints respecting the administration of the contract. If someone's not getting paid in a timely fashion, for example, they could go to the procurement auditor to attempt to get payment under their contract. For that reason, and given that scope of complaint mechanism that's contemplated, proposed section 22.2 works hand in glove with that in restricting the complaints to Canadian suppliers. The emphasis on Canadian suppliers was meant to, from a policy perspective, prevent foreign suppliers from using the procurement auditor to make complaints instead of going through appropriate trade agreement channels.
(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])