I pulled up the template letter that is used by a department that wants to request a national security exemption. It makes it very clear that it has to do with Canada's trade agreements, current and future, and that the letter is asking for the exception to be made on that basis. It has nothing to do with sole-sourcing as far as I could see.
I want to turn my attention now to Mr. Breton and follow up on my colleague's questions around the invoking of the national security exception by Shared Services. That's with reference to the cases that were brought to the Canadian International Trade Tribunal, the Dalian Enterprises and the Eclipsys Solutions case. The tribunal did find in Shared Services' favour but it had a big question regarding the integrity and fairness of SSC's procurement process. Is it common, as the tribunal said, to have “too wide an exclusion from the disciplines of the trade agreements for reasons seemingly unrelated to national security”?
I'd like to have your comments on that and on what your process has been since then to make sure that future procurements are more open, fair, and honest.