Minister, thank you so much for being with us today. I believe this is my first opportunity to have a conversation with you directly or to ask questions, and I very much appreciate this chance.
In your mandate letter, which I've read in full a few times now, you're instructed to—and I'll quote it directly—“Fully implement lessons learned from previous information technology project challenges and failures, particularly around sunk costs and major multi-year contracts.”
The federal government in recent years has awarded internal contracts to technology company Cisco with high frequency. I don't think this is news to you, of course. It has made the national media. This is part of what some observers are calling “a pattern of dependency by Ottawa on a single network provider that has all but shut out competing bids.”
Are you worried about lack of competition when it comes to Shared Services Canada and procuring IT equipment?