We only deal with project directors at SNC-Lavalin. We work regularly with them. They are people we know well, to whom we provide services and who use our services regularly.
On Friday, I asked one of the project directors at SNC-Lavalin what the rules are that govern them. I asked her what the process was, for example, for a contract that had been awarded to a Montreal firm and why we had not been invited to bid. She told me that she was not authorized to disclose the rules or the process used or to explain how things worked or why people do and do not have to bid. If you give me a contract, but you don't tell me what its parameters are or what rules I must follow, it is hard for me to provide services in accordance with the price that I will bid.
It is too bad, because when PWGSC managed the federal government buildings, the rules were better known and more clearly defined. I do not know what happened when the contract was transferred to SNC-Lavalin, but some rules got lost along the way. Certain words disappeared from contract documents. This means we are now in the dark. It is all managed by the private sector.
I am not saying that SNC-Lavalin is a bad company, but it is working in the dark, and that means that we do not know the value of our work.