Thank you.
Let me just clarify two issues. First, I don't negotiate. We facilitate. It's not a negotiating process at all. We do facilitate, though. Second, I am not the Public Works ombudsman. I'm the ombudsman for procurement of the federal government and I have a government-wide mandate. I don't report to the Public Works deputy minister; I report to the Minister of Public Works. So I think there's a nuance and a difference here.
The important thing is that the departments have shown a lot of goodwill and a willingness to resolve the issues. In many cases when we have brought something to the attention of senior management, they've been surprised that there was even an issue there.
What are the issues? For example, somebody phones us and says they were supposed to get their cheque 60 days ago, but they haven't got their payment yet, and what happened? We phone the department and they say they were doing a system change and something happened. The payment may be only $30,000 or $40,000—sometimes there are a lot of zeros behind the cheques in this town—and it's not a lot of money to a procurement officer, but to the supplier that may be all the money he makes this year, so we help speed up the process.