National security exceptions have nothing to do with competing or non-competing out. If there's anything we can achieve today, I really want to leave the committee with that. It's an important message that we all want to convey.
I'm looking now at the government contracting regulations. Our default is competition in Canada. We will always compete. There are certain exceptions, which are the needs of pressing emergency in which delay would be injurious to the public interest. This is a very high test. There's jurisprudence on this that cannot be abused.
Next is that the expenditure doesn't exceed $25,000, or $100,000 where it's for architectural engineering. There are certain different financial limits if it's Privy Council and the rest of it. The nature of the work is such that it wouldn't be in the public interest to solicit bids, so there are some where there's a lot of national security interest in play, and it has to be justified, or where there's only one person capable of performing a contract. You mentioned an advanced contract award notification, ACAN. We issue those often just to make sure there is no other person who can do it.
As I said, directed sourcing or sole-sourcing is rare for us. Our default is competition also when a national security exception is applied, so they are two distinct things. National security exceptions are applied, and we go ahead and compete, and I've given you many recent instances.