Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I join my colleagues in welcoming you here today. Thank you so much for joining us.
I also want to thank you for the work you've done in this report. Even though we asked for it, I know that you took some time and further confirmed that it was work that was very necessary. As you can well imagine, the procurement processes are very complex, but I think what your report did was confirm for many of us around this table that there was misconduct in regard to some of the processes, or the not following of processes, as we understood it. I think your report has confirmed our suspicions in that regard.
I will follow up later around the task authorizations, because I think that's a very important issue, but I first want to point out what you mentioned on page 18 of your report. You mentioned in point 61 what I think is a very bizarre issue. It's that there is no written record of GC Strategies being contacted to submit a bid for their initial ArriveCAN contract. You say in your report, “The only record of communication between the Crown and the supplier prior to signing of the Contract was an email from the supplier with quoted rates for various IT professional resource categories.”
I guess what I'm wondering is this: Can you tell us whether this means GC Strategies was directly contacted in an unofficial manner to submit a bid for ArriveCAN?