Government Operations Committee on March 3rd, 2009

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

I call the meeting to order, colleagues.

We're continuing our short study of procurement, with the focus being principally on the Department of Public Works. As you will recall, today we want to look at the impacts of current procurement policies and any changes in process for small and medium-sized enterprises. We asked the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade to provide us with some information in that regard. We have a manufacturing sector representative as well, who has experience in both government procurement and changes in government procurement policy.

Having said that, I think today we'll let the Department of Public Works and Government Services lead off. I think they asked to lead off in the last meeting and we weren't able to let them.

From Public Works, we have Liliane saint pierre, who is assistant deputy minister, acquisitions; John Rath-Wilson, acting chief operating officer; Normand Masse, director general, services and specialized acquisitions. All of those titles come with additions, which I didn't read.

I'm going to ask Public Works, Madam saint pierre, to please start off.

[Liliane saint pierre, Assistant Deputy Minister, Acquisitions Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services]

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We are very grateful to you for allowing us to provide you with an overview of federal government procurement. The colleagues with me today are, to my right, Normand Masse, Director General of the Services and Specialized Acquisitions Management Sector, and John Rath-Wilson, Acting Chief Operating Officer, Information Technology Services Branch. Shereen Miller, Director General of the Small and Medium Enterprises Sector, is to my left.

Mr. Chair, in a moment, I will ask Mr. Masse to give you a brief overview of federal government procurement.

Before I give him the floor, I want to highlight some important facts. First, in 2007-08, 49% of the total value of business done by PWGSC with Canadian suppliers went to SMEs. That is up from 34% in 2004-05.

Second, MERX, the government electronic tendering system, has been free of charge to access all government procurement opportunities since 2005. The PWGSC office of small and medium-sized enterprises offers free seminars on how to navigate MERX. Also, further to national consultations completed last summer, PWGSC has delivered improvements, such as the popular search feature, to make MERX more user-friendly.

About 11,000 transactions are carried out through MERX every year. All unsuccessful suppliers are entitled to debrief, as stated in the Government of Canada contracting policy.

Finally, with regard to shared information technology services and the Government Enterprise Network Services, no decision has been made. Our consultations did not end until February and the department is presently conducting its analysis. We will submit our plan to this committee as stipulated in the motion that was passed last June.

Mr. Chair, Mr. Masse will now take you through the presentation you have before you.

[Normand Masse, Director General, Services and Specialized Acquisitions Management Sector, Aquisition Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to be able to address the committee on our procurement overview.

It is going to be a fairly quick overview. I believe you have all received the deck I'm going to use. It starts with the glossary of terms and contracting principles and objectives, and it leads up to the typical contracting process, which is the art of our professional expertise. My focus will be on that procurement process and the management control framework.

On slide 3 you will see a number of common terms we use in procurement. I would like to bring your attention to MERX. MERX is our Internet-based electronic tendering system. This is how we inform the industry of the Government of Canada's requirements. It is really the window into the government.

The advance contract award notice at the bottom is a notice used when the government intends to award a contract to a pre-identified supplier. We obviously want to be up front, and those ACANs foster competition by asking other suppliers to submit statements of capabilities if they think they meet our requirements. All of that is done before awarding a contract to that specified supplier.

If you move to the next slide on page four, public procurement is not just buying something at the lowest price possible. PWGSC is there to obtain the best value for the taxpayer. We often illustrate public procurement as a balancing act, and that is why we have these principles and objectives, with the first one being integrity. We ensure open, fair, and transparent activities for our procurement.

Client service is also important. We obviously make every reasonable effort to satisfy the operational requirements, but best value is the key we're trying to obtain.

You're probably all very familiar with national objectives. We have national socio-economic policies. We have international trade agreements, and I'll speak more about that later.

On competition, this is the first attempt and the first reaction we have when we deal with government requirements. We're trying to compete everywhere possible. Some exceptions are listed here. Intellectual property is one, and emergency situations is another one, etc.

Equal treatment is also something we're very proud of. We ensure suppliers are treated equally. That means we provide the same information and evaluate on the same basis in all our procurement activities.

I have some key facts and figures, to give you the magnitude of what we do. As you probably know, PWGSC is Canada's largest public purchaser of goods and services. We're responsible for more than 80% of the dollar value, but only 10% of the total number of contracts. It is important to understand that other entities in the Government of Canada are also doing procurement at the lower end of the spectrum, but they do 90% of the documents and we do 80% of the value.

We buy for over 100 departments and agencies and spend between $11 billion and $15 billion a year, and we manage approximately 60,000 contractual documents each year. That includes the original and amendments. For example, in 2007-08, small and medium businesses in Canada sold over $4.8 billion worth of goods and services to the Government of Canada.

Slide 6 shows the four main players, although there are a lot more. Treasury Board sets the policies, limits on departmental authorities, oversight rules, etc., and also approves projects over limits that have been set for Public Works and other departments. The second are government departments and agencies. They are the ones that determine the requirement for goods and services. As I mentioned, they also contract for some goods and services within their limit. PWGSC is obviously a common service provider. We're there to ensure that contracting is fair, transparent, and accessible. We're there to make sure it complies with trade agreements, policies, etc. The suppliers obviously are important key players because they are delivering on our contracts, they are delivering goods and services. They also contribute largely to the improvement of the procurement process through consultation. We've done a lot of consultation in the last four years to improve the supply chain.

Page 7 shows the main legislative and regulatory framework. This provides the legislative authority to our minister to procure on behalf of the Government of Canada. The statutes also come into play in that framework and basically control how all the tax dollars will be spent and give the authority to the Minister of Public Works to procure military requirements.

Slide 8 shows some of the treaty and trade agreements. I believe we're going to have a bit more on this later on from our colleagues in DFAIT. Each of those international and internal agreements has a set of terms and conditions. They all have different thresholds where they apply, and so on. It is really important to our contribution to those agreements to make sure we comply with them.

On slides 9 and 10 you're going to see the top client departments with their dollar value and the percentage of the dollar value. On slide 9 you will notice that the Department of National Defence represents 51% of the procurement done by Public Works. That's the largest single department we deal with.

The second one is our own department, but let me explain. Public Works also has standing offers and we're doing a lot of consolidation procurement instruments for other departments. This is why it shows as a huge number, but it's really through those standing offers, through our consolidated purchase for real property or IT, which is done on behalf of other departments.

Also, a point to note under “Canadian crown corporations” is that these are mostly managing foreign government sales. These are foreign governments that come to Canada to provide business to our Canadian firms.

Slide 10 shows the top commodities. You'll notice information processing and related telecom services is the largest one. The maintenance and repair for aircraft fleet is also an important one. And you have the top 10, the IT, etc. Under “Others”, one has to understand that this includes hundreds of different categories. It includes things like furniture, research and development, vehicles, etc.

Slide 11 gives you an overview of the share between competitive and non-competitive contracting. This chart shows above $25,000 only. The split is about 80-20, and there's a bit of an explanation there--competitive open bidding, competitive through the advance contract notice. We foster the competition through the ACAN, so it is considered a competitive requirement. Government-wide, it's 81%. The procurement managed by Public Works is 80%. Our first choice, as I mentioned, is always to compete. The procurement requirement dictates the procurement strategy, really.

Slide 12 really shows the arc of the procurement process. On that chart you have nine boxes that go from the beginning to the end of the procurement cycle. You will notice the segregation of responsibilities. Everything in the yellow boxes is the responsibility of the client department, the originator of the demand; the blue ones are the responsibility of Public Works; and the mixed colours are those with shared responsibilities, and I'll give you some examples.

So in the “requirement definition” box, the department defines its requirement, obtains project approval, obtains the funding, and basically asks Public Works to get involved in procuring what is required.

The procurement strategy is where we develop the way we're going to approach the procurement. This is where we decide or look at the trade agreements to see which will apply and which will not apply.

Then we get to solicitation and its various types: competitive, one-stage, multi-stage, etc. There are differences between them. The multi-stage is where we prequalify the supplier before we invite them to prepare a submission. This reduces the costs to the industry, so it's very important.

And then we get to the evaluation box, which is a shared box. The technical evaluation is done by the client department, but not the financial kinds of submissions, as we do the financial and selection methodologies.

Then we have contract approval, and you should notice here that we have third party reviews to ensure that we're compliant with all trade agreements and that everything is legally sound and the required quality is there.

Then there are the contract award, contract administration, contract payment, and contract close-out boxes, all of which include a management framework.

So slide 12 really summarizes the whole process.

On slide 13, you will see the dispute resolution mechanisms. First of all, let me say that the majority of concerns or disputes are resolved by our procurement specialists and managers in Public Works. Now, the four levels that you see on the slide are also ways of resolving disputes. We have within Public Works two committees or boards that look at disputes: the contract claims resolution board and alternative dispute resolution. Again, we're talking of a minimal number of requirements that go through any one of these boxes. For example, within Public Works, perhaps 25 cases a year out of the 60,000 contracts that we award reach that first block on slide 13. I would say that 20 of them would be resolved through alternative dispute resolution and only five would go to contract claims resolution.

Now, another level is our Office of the Procurement Ombudsman, which came into effect in May 2008. Basically, they look at procurement practices and the complaints that are not covered by the next box, the Canadian International Trade Tribunal. Every time procurement is subject to one of the trade agreements, whether internal or international trade agreements, it is within the jurisdiction of the Canadian International Trade Tribunal to consider and address complaints from suppliers. I have some interesting statistics on that on the next page.

The Federal Court is the last level. Suppliers can always go to the Federal Court in bringing their grievances forward. We normally have only about four or five cases a year reaching the Federal Court, again out of the 60,000.

Slide 14 shows that 80 challenges were presented to CITT in 2007-08, 54 of which were rejected by CITT for being outside their jurisdiction. If you look at the ones that were accepted, in fact only eight were valid; and out of the eight, only four, or approximately four, were upheld. So this really shows you the magnitude of those complaints or challenges, keeping in mind that we are awarding 60,000 contracts a year.

This really completes my presentation to you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Thank you very much.

That presentation was a lot longer than the normal presentation, colleagues, but I thought it would be useful for the public record, since it was an overview of the entire process.

Thank you very much for that.

Now we'll turn to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and the director general for multilateral trade policy, Gilles Gauthier. He's joined by Dany Carriere, the deputy director of investment trade policy.

I think you have some information for us on how procurement relates both to our SMEs and our trade obligations. Go ahead.

[Gilles Gauthier, Director General, Multilateral Trade Policy , Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am going to make a brief presentation. My thanks go to the committee for giving me the opportunity to provide these remarks.

Government procurement makes up a significant part of our economic activity. So it is not surprising that the topic generates so much interest in our trade agreements and remains an important matter in all trade negotiations. Canada has been subject to international obligations for procurement approximately since the early 1980s. Currently, there are three international trade agreements that include obligations on government procurement: NAFTA, especially chapter 10; the World Trade Organization agreement that specifically deals with government procurement, and the free trade agreement between Canada and Chile, to which a chapter on government procurement was added in 2008.

The basic objective of international agreements on government procurement is to commit the parties to establish transparent, open and fair procurement policies. However, the obligations apply only to the federal government. No obligations apply to provincial or municipal governments.

Government procurement chapters are essentially structured in two parts: the substantive rules and obligations and the market access commitments. The substantive obligations, or rules, are essentially the same in all of our three agreements. The rules centre on the key principle of non-discrimination, that is, foreign suppliers should be treated the same way as domestic suppliers. The prohibition would offset, for instance, minimum local content requirement, the transparency of procurement laws and regulations and policies, and the transparency of the procurement process itself.

The agreement also contains provisions on dispute settlement, including what is known as the bid challenge mechanism whereby a supplier can challenge before an impartial body, in our case the Canadian International Trade Tribunal, any aspect of the procurement process. In fact, Mr. Masse has elaborated a bit on this topic.

In terms of market access commitment, each agreement defines in a precise and detailed manner the scope and coverage in terms of the type of procurement, the goods, services, construction, the minimum dollar value threshold of a procurement that is covered, as well as the list of government entities for which the procurement is made. I believe we have a one-pager that outlines the different thresholds that are used in our various agreements, and you'll see that there are some differences among the three agreements for goods, services, and construction.

In terms of the entities covered, Canada's commitment extends to procurements made by or on the behalf of a very large number of federal departments and agencies. And in the case of NAFTA and the FTA with Chile, we also cover ten federal crown corporations. In terms of the types of procurement, generally all goods are covered, with the exception of defence-related goods. There are, however, some purchases of the Department of National Defence and of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that are covered, such as office equipment, but the bulk of the purchases of these departments related to procurement of military equipment is not included.

In terms of the coverage of services, the coverage is generally more limited than goods. Some very significant purchases, such as those related to information and communication services, are not included in these agreements.

Finally, Canada includes all construction projects, with the exception of dredging and construction contracts tendered by or on behalf of Transport Canada. These are the broad parameters. In addition to the specific coverage, Canada has retained a number of specific exceptions in these agreements. The most notable exclusions or exceptions are procurements in respect to shipbuilding and repair, urban rail and urban transportation equipment system components and material incorporated therein, as well as project-related materials of iron and steel.

We also have included an exclusion for set-asides for small and minority businesses. These exceptions or exclusions are included in all our three agreements. With respect to the set-aside for small and minority businesses, Canada originally retained this exclusion to match the same exclusion taken by the United States during our negotiation of the NAFTA and of the WTO agreement.

At that time, Canada did not have a minority or small business set-aside program in place. Since then, however, Canada has implemented the procurement strategy for aboriginal businesses, a set-aside program for aboriginal businesses, and that program is administered by the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs. With respect to our trading partners, as I mentioned, the United States has a set-aside program for small and minority businesses. This is a long-standing program dating back to the 1950s. The U.S. set-aside program has historically been a difficult issue for Canadian businesses because of the lack of predictability in that program and the fact that such procurement would have otherwise been subject to the obligation of these agreements.

It's worth noting, however, that other important trading partners of Canada, such as the European Union, do not retain a set-aside exception for small and minority businesses. In fact, the European Union has been and continues to be a vocal opponent of any such programs.

In conclusion, international trade agreements play an important role in the development and implementation of government procurement policies and practices. They foster our domestic policy objective of transparent and competitive procurement processes, and internationally they ensure that Canadian suppliers have fair and non-discriminatory access to government procurement in our trading partners.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Could I have just one clarification?

In your remarks, you refer to “small and minority businesses”. That's a term that hasn't been used around the table here. We've used the term “small and medium-sized enterprises”. Could you tell us what small and minority business is?

[Gilles Gauthier]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

There is no specific definition contained in our trade agreement.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

You'll have to give us your interpretation of it very quickly. What does it mean?

[Gilles Gauthier]

Well, in plain language, it is a program destined for a minority group, such as we have for aboriginals. The United States has one for blacks, for instance. And small business is a small business.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Okay, I understand. Thank you for that clarification.

Now, the next presentation for us, colleagues, is from Mr. Greg Rapier. He's the co-chair of the Canadian Furniture Task Group of the Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturer's Association, sometimes known as BIFMA.

[Greg Rapier, Co-Chair, Canadian Furniture Task Group, Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturer's Association (BIFMA)]

It's much more often known as BIFMA, because that's a lot shorter.

I thank the committee for the opportunity to speak on behalf of the industry.

BIFMA's mission is to lead, advocate, inform, and develop standards for the North American office and institutional furniture industry. Our organization represents some 140 member manufacturers and service providers from around the world.

In 2006, the Canadian Furniture Task Group, a sub-organization of BIFMA, was formed to represent the industry in Canada. Our task group contains 111 individual members representing 75 companies in the manufacturer, distributor, and service provider element of our industry. Of these 75 companies, 50 would fall into the small and medium-sized enterprise category as defined by Industry Canada.

BIFMA has many concerns regarding the recent procurement for the free-standing furniture request for standing offer that was concluded in the month of January and in early February. It starts with a perception from our industry that the Public Works philosophy has moved from a historically inclusive procurement process to a more exclusive process. This particular RFSO resulted in a reduction in contract awards in this category from 36 manufacturers to only five manufacturers. The end result is that competition has in fact been reduced within this category, with a real chance that the crown may see increased costs as opposed to decreased costs. In fact, in three of the four product categories that exist in this procurement, only two bidders were qualified and received standing offers.

Historically in the RFSO process, Public Works provided opportunities for bidders to clarify bids and submit additional information as required, but during this RFSO process, very few bidders received communication of any kind from Public Works and, again, received little, if any, opportunity to provide clarifications for their bid submissions. The end result was that some bidders were disqualified for simple typographical errors in their bid submissions and others for issues that easily could have been clarified had the opportunity been provided by Public Works.

The vast majority of the unsuccessful companies in this category fall under the SME classification, and each of these companies would have expended tens of thousands of dollars to test their products for compliancy and prepare and submit their bid. The end result? Some of these businesses, certainly those that rely very heavily on government procurement opportunities in light of the current economic scenario, could see their businesses at risk.

In addition to manufacturers who bid on the RFSO, our industry contains a very large number of distributor entities, dealerships, 95% of which would fall in the SME category, and they too suffer from the loss of the opportunity to pursue government business.

The successful small and medium entities in this category face real risks in managing their contracts related to annual volumes and the typical surge in government year-end buying. Unfortunately, in office furniture, procurement is not spread evenly throughout the course of the year. In some categories, 60% to 70% of procurement occurs in the 90-day window of the fourth quarter.

If you're a small business and you suddenly have to deal with a massive uptick in your business activity, you might find yourself having to exclude every other customer that you have from business while you service the federal government. The risk then falls on you. Should you in the future lose that federal government contract, you would face the opportunity or the challenge of having to win back all the customers you've turned away.

As an industry, we also believe that service levels to crown clients will be at risk, as the small number of successful bidders trying to deal with the surge in year-end volume will experience extended lead times, making it very difficult to meet the delivery obligation that the goods must be received by the end of the fiscal year.

This procurement process failed despite the best efforts of our industry to collaborate with the crown through the Government Office Furniture Advisory Committee, also known as GOFAC. GOFAC was formed in 2007 as an advisory committee, bringing together Public Works, government user departments, and industry representatives due to a true commitment to collaboration focused on achieving positive results for all parties.

Since its formation in 2007, and as a result of significant changes in Public Works membership, GOFAC has again become perceived by the industry as an adversarial environment where industry and user input is selectively responded to. GOFAC advised Public Works of several potential pitfalls in the current procurement process, which were ignored to the detriment of the crown. This resulted in several bid requirements that were misaligned with the standard and common industry practices in the office furniture environment. Several mandatory requirements of the bid were not reviewed with GOFAC, preventing the kind of collaboration that would have improved the bid document and the procurement process. Just so you're aware, there are eight industry members on GOFAC, four of whom would fit in the SME category.

The resultant procurement process for the free-standing furniture RFSO was the most complex, costly, and challenging bid document our industry has ever seen. The bid contained several onerous mandatory requirements that added significant cost and opportunity for error. This included the need for an editable price list and complex product technical forms and documentation. There was also massive confusion and ambiguity about how the industry was to respond to several of the mandatory bid requirements, and the delay in receiving clear answers from Public Works created extensive costs due to rework and increased the opportunity for error.

The final significant amendment was published on November 18, a mere seven days prior to the original bid closing. A one-week extension did little to alleviate the time-related issues with the bid. The original bid timeline of 47 calendar days was insufficient to allow bidders to properly formulate their submissions. Only on the release of the RFSO was the final mandatory basket of goods and technical requirements provided to our industry. Only then could manufacturers determine if the efforts and costs expended to pretest the products were sufficient. If not, you had to develop a test plan, manufacture product, ship it to a test lab, and complete your testing. In the event that your product had any test failures, you would have to redesign, re-engineer a product, and repeat the entire process again.

At the same time, the number of manufacturers who had to go to the test labs for product testing left the bidders incapable of completing the mandatory product testing in time, because the test laboratories were not able to keep up with the capacity required.

The original timeline for this RFSO, as discussed in our GOFAC meetings, was intended for a July bid release with a fall closing. This would have provided four to five months, which would have been adequate had this schedule been met. Significant delays in the release saw the response time compressed so much that the industry struggled to adequately respond.

Our industry remains committed to working collaboratively with the crown to achieve procurement reform that is positive for all parties involved. We believe Public Works is not as committed to this process as we are and regularly blames the industry for issues in the procurement process. Comments have frequently been made regarding the poor quality of the bid responses, without regard to the concerns frequently raised about the complexity of a bid that does not seem to align with the standard industry approach to business.

Public Works has apparently confirmed the shortcomings in the free-standing process by extending the active bid for systems furniture by an additional four months to provide an adequate timeframe for the industry to provide quality responses. Had this procurement provided a similar timeline, many of the issues and challenges could have been overcome by the bidders.

The industry has made several suggestions to Public Works on how to simplify the bid process and reduce the costs associated with same. Given the move to what we describe as closed contract dates versus the previously open contract dates--where standing offers could be awarded at any time--many companies will expend tens, and in some categories, hundreds of thousands of dollars unsuccessfully bidding on government opportunities. Simple decisions could be made to delay some of the most costly requirements to apply only to successful bidders. Other decisions could be made to reduce the total cost of the bidding process, making it much easier for SMEs to pursue business opportunities and allowing all industry members to pass savings on to the crown.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Thank you very much, Mr. Rapier.

We'll go right to questions. We spent a lot of time on the submissions.

I'll go to Ms. Hall Findlay.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you very much to all the witnesses for your time today.

In a much earlier lifetime I had the pleasure, if you can call it that, as a lawyer, of working on government RFPs, and I have to say it doesn't sound like it's improved a whole lot since those days.

I have many questions. The first one relates, in fact, to the fair and transparent comments that we heard earlier. I do want to first say that the Information Commissioner's report commended PWGSC for improving on their performance last year--so credit where it's due. I would urge you to do what you can to lobby internally for more resources. This is clearly a significant issue, and it's a theme that we hear throughout all of it, that there still remains a significant lack of transparency. Whether that's in the process itself or in obtaining records on the process is a continuing issue.

I want to focus now on the non-competitive part of the procurement process. I notice that this is a three-year average, going from 2005 to 2007. The non-competitive aspect, whether it's government-wide or PWGSC, is 19% to 20%. I want to ask about two aspects of this. One, although that's a three-year average, is that an increase or a decrease, historically?

I think, Monsieur Masse, that would be a question to you.

[Normand Masse]

Obviously we took a three-year average here. In the last few years we've seen a slight increase in the numbers, but over a longer period it's fairly stable. Again, on the window of three years, if you take the one before that--it would be 2004 to 2006--it was slightly lower than what you see here.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Do you see a trend even between the three years that comprise this average? Has it gone up?

[Normand Masse]

There are slight trends of going up.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Then my question is this. We're being asked by the current government to issue, in effect, a fairly significant blank cheque. We understand the need for money to flow into the economy from a stimulus perspective, but we are still very concerned about accountability and transparency--and up front as opposed to after-the-fact accountability. I would like to know, of the money that will end up flowing through PWGSC, and in light of my question about non-competitive contracts, whether you can speak to how the department plans to expedite expenditures. What effect will that have on the RFP process? And do you see that increasing, for example, the volume of non-competitive contracts?

Again going back to that earlier life, I do understand that the normal RFP process, although important from an accountability perspective, can be time-consuming. I would like to have some sense of what the department feels it will be doing to expedite these expenditures.

[Liliane saint pierre]

Thank you, Madam.

Thank you for your question.

Regarding the infrastructure program, you were privy to a presentation last week related to the contribution of the role of Public Works related to that program. As the contracting authority, we are committed to competition. We are committed to have an open, fair, and transparent process. This is our starting point. Of course, through the government contracting regulation there might be some exceptions when you're talking about extreme urgency. But having said that, we always start with that process. We are presently working very closely with our colleagues to develop concrete plans related to all the projects that are being lined up to be completed and to ensure that those pass the high standard of tests of quality.

On the other process that we are putting in place, we are looking at very closely monitoring those contracts, the administration of the contracts, and the delivery of those projects.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

I will be a little bit more specific. All that sounds terrific. Developing concrete plans sounds great, but the reason we're being asked to approve this blank cheque is the speed with which we need an economic stimulus. So developing plans doesn't give one a lot of comfort at this point.

If I can be a bit more specific, do you see an increase in non-competitive contracts? I will point out that although competition is, in your words, of key importance, 20% of all contracts being sole-source or non-competitive is a significant number. And I am concerned that we're going to see corners being cut and a significant increase in the use of non-competitive contracts over the next little while to ensure that money flows fairly quickly.

Specifically, is it your expectation that we will see an increase in non-competitive contracts over the next little while?

[Liliane saint pierre]

Monsieur le président, madame, based on the information we have right now, I do not see any increase in sole-source contracting related to the infrastructure program with respect to, for example, real property.

There are two reasons. The first is that when you look at the nature of the work, it's an acceleration of the plans we already have in place for renovating buildings. Second, we have already in place some contracting instruments, such as standing offers and contracts, that we could use. They have competed to do that work.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you. That helped.

Do you have comfort, given that resources are stretched at the best of times, that if you are asked to ramp up very quickly you have the resources--the personnel and the other resources in the department--to significantly increase spending on a short-term basis?

[Liliane saint pierre]

Monsieur le président, madame, when I was referring to establishing plans, I was referring more specifically to identifying all the additional resources required based on the needs and requirements identified. We have already started to put those plans into effect. We are gearing up and bringing the right expertise. We are looking all across Canada to identify who is there and who is available. In addition, our deputy minister has struck a whole group that is specifically dedicated to dealing with the infrastructure program and the increase in spending it leads to.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Right. Not to take away from the goodwill you are clearly showing in that regard, not too long ago we heard examples of very, very long delays in getting people into the public service. We also know there are a number of other departments that will be competing for those resources.

Just for the record, we remain concerned, despite the goodwill. The whole point of being asked to grant a blank cheque is to get money out the door more quickly, and if it relies on resources that have in the past taken a great deal of time to bring in, we remain concerned.

We're done? I'll save the next one for the next round.

Merci beaucoup.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

That will wrap us up. Thank you very much.

Madame Bourgeois, pour huit minutes.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My first question goes to Mr. Rapier.

Although your association brings together 140 international organizations, I was wondering if you have recently had any dealings with the Office of Small and Medium Enterprises? Do you know that the office exists?