I think our discussion here today illustrates why procurement is a complex business. I'll just give you a sense of how we apply it. The total value of procurement awarded by the Government of Canada amounted to about $23 billion annually; over 75% of that was managed by our department. We navigate applying the trade agreements and dealing with requests for invocation of NSEs. As we said earlier, the request for invocation of NSEs, and their invocation, doesn't mean we don't still compete. We still apply Canada's contracting framework.
About 87% of our business value—the money that was procured—was awarded competitively by us. The vast majority of our work, even with the application of NSEs, is competed. It is a complex job for procurement officers. They're specialized, and we train them rigorously. We bring them through a development program, and it takes five to six years to get them to the stage where they are handling these big procurements and dealing with NSE invocations.