Public Works and Government Services provides a procurement service to its departmental clients for goods and services. Consequently, our actions are governed by the requests we receive. I would like to clarify two points. First, we have implemented standing offers that are open to all departments. We have an increasing number of standing offers at the moment. In the last two years, we have established what we call commodity management. So, when departments have consistent on-going needs, we set up committees with them, we get to know the industry better and we develop global purchasing strategies for all products of that kind. We establish mechanisms that lead to a number of standing offers. However, we are moving away from standing offers because there are so many of them and because companies had no figures to provide about them. That is the first thing.
On March 3rd, 2009. See this statement in context.