All right. Thank you.
My comment is this. Our committee, on behalf of the House, is engaging in an exercise here, attempting to track, monitor, the stimulus spending. To date, we seem to be unable to establish any benchmark, any useful, clear measuring stick on how that stimulus spending is flowing. Now you've explained to us why. Essentially you're saying, “This is a work in progress. We're on day 20. Give us a chance to get it sorted out.”
Parliament may or may not be happy with that, and colleagues around the table will be considering this over the next while. I believe it's the view of the committee that we want to continue to monitor the progress and the spending of the stimulus package. You've indicated that on May 14 the supplementary estimates (A) will provide a reasonable amount of clarity on some of the spending. So colleagues can look forward to that. That's approximately three weeks from now.
I think I can say for most members, if not all, that we'd like to be able to sink our teeth into some real benchmarks. Let's get out the thermometer and take a temperature. Right now I realize the thing is progressing, and it's a large undertaking, but I think we'll want at some point, whether it's with you as witnesses or with ministers, to be able to see those crystallized benchmarks. I'm telling you that now. I think that's where the committee members would like to be on behalf of the House.
So that's my comment, and if there aren't any further interventions on this subject, we can release the witnesses. The witnesses may withdraw at this time. Thank you very much for attending again. You've acquitted yourselves well, and we all look forward to seeing you again should that be necessary. Thank you very much.
Colleagues, before we adjourn, there are five items of business I have to place before you. I don't think any of it is controversial, but we'll see.
The first item is future business. As you know, we're going into a three-meeting phase now, where we're looking at procurement. The clerk and our researcher have done a good job of bringing witnesses together, and we'll be using live attendances and some videoconferencing. I'm just alerting you to that. On the focus of our inquiry—I'm just going to repeat this—we're not doing a study of the entire world of procurement. That is a massive undertaking. What we're really looking at is the ability of SMEs to access RFPs and the government procurement process. So we're going to keep it at that, and even that by itself is probably a significant issue.
Anyway, I've taken a look at the work plan for it. I think you'll find the three days useful.
Secondly, you will recall members discussed the fact that this committee in the previous Parliament completed a report, tabled it, and asked for a comprehensive response from the government. By my calculations, the response should have been given by the government by a particular date—I have the information—which expired without the response. As a result, it appears to me that the government didn't reply within the time allowed, within the 120 days, but it's noteworthy that within a couple of weeks of that date, Parliament dissolved for an election. So it would be understandable that the department at that point didn't devote much energy to this, but it seems pretty clear that the deadline was missed. The department would have had to table this through the clerk with Parliament not sitting, because Parliament was not sitting at the time. That date was the 29th of August.
Rather than our taking steps here, I've simply indicated to the Privy Council that it is our take on this that the report should have been completed and should have been tabled. And I'm asking whether they have actually done the work. If they have, I'm prepared to write to them to ask them to provide the response. If they can't do that, then we may be able to take other steps. I'm quite sure that we can take other steps, but let's allow them the opportunity to provide a report without us formally re-adopting that measure.
If that's okay, I'll proceed on that basis.
I have a motion to adopt a budget for our procurement study. Who wants to move this very important motion? We're looking for about $5,800 for witnesses for the procurement study.
Mr. Warkentin moves that the committee adopt a budget in the amount of $5,875 for its study of the federal government's procurement process.
(Motion agreed to)