I'm a bit concerned in one particular way, because in this testimony—and I might refer it to the attention of the committee and whoever would be interested—the question was asked, how was the minister involved in the contracting generally? It was a very broad-based question.
There was a response by the deputy minister, Mr. Marshall, in which he stated that “the minister is the general director of the department; he does not get involved in any individual contracting. He is typically informed only at the very end, when the department has made a recommendation.”
There was another question asked: “Was the minister or any of his staff involved in the TPG contract?” It was a very direct question, and the answer was unequivocal from the deputy minister: “Not in any way.”
He was asked whether he was satisfied that the contracting issue was a fair and open process. I think it's very important, and I'm going to read through the response here, because I think it gets right to the crux of where we're heading on this.
He said, “Yes, I am. ... We received three bids for this contract. The technical part was evaluated by five separate, individual evaluators, who did not talk to each other during the process.”
The secondary portion was the financial part. It was “evaluated by a lead evaluator and checked by a second one. I was briefed after the process had progressed to a certain extent. I was not told who won the contract, but I asked my chief risk officer, since it was potentially a large one”—as you've mentioned, this was a large contract—“to assure me after a review that all the proper processes had been followed; he did so. The minister's office was informed in due course on March 14, much later, when it was getting ready to be sent over to Treasury Board.” In other words, it was a fait accompli, just subject to the last-minute checks.
The deputy minister at that point said, though, “I personally interviewed the evaluators, and they've assured me there was absolutely no interference from anybody, let alone the minister's office, so the evaluations were never changed.” Obviously the minister was not one of the evaluators.
Did any of the evaluators complain either to Minister Fortier and/or to the deputy minister? Mr. Marshall said, “Absolutely not, and I asked them that question point-blank.”
So that brings me obviously to a situation where we have what I guess you would call a direct conflict of opinion on this matter. That, of course, will come to the assessment and judgment of this committee and others before. But I have just a couple of other thoughts.
How many contracts has TPG previously held with the federal government?