Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Firth, for joining us today.
I'd like to get to the bottom of the process. I think Canadians are still trying to understand how this process works and how contracts get awarded.
Elected officials come and go. You've been working with government, through the bureaucracy, with public service officials since 2007. Can you maybe take us back to your first time working with the government and what the processes were then? Did they change over time? How did you and your colleagues, your partners, navigate through any changes—if there have been changes—through those processes?
Did you build relationships over that time? Did our bureaucracy and our.... Ultimately, we have public service officials who work for decades in different departments, hundreds of departments. Did they get comfortable seeing you? Did they overlook certain processes?
We're trying to get to the bottom of how contracts are being given out. In this case, you've received hundreds of contracts since 2007 in your time working with government. Maybe walk us through your time during 2007 and try to answer some of those questions along the way.