Thanks, Mr. Chair.
I go back to this issue of changing the procurement strategy midstream, and this is under line of enquiry one, “Competitive procurement practices leading to contracts awarded to McKinsey”. The ombudsman lays out a storyline that, I think for most people, seems inappropriate, and this is with regard to a contract for $452,000 procured by ISED. They had originally considered issuing a contract directly using a non-competitive process, and then a review board internally said, “No, that's not appropriate,” which is good—the checks and balances worked. Then they reached out proactively to McKinsey and provided them with a link to the task-based supply arrangement, and in response McKinsey said, “No, we don't qualify for that.” ISED came back to them again and said, “Hey, good news. We've changed it. Now it's a solution-based supply arrangement.”
Getting back to what we saw with ArriveCAN, there's this situation in which the vendors and people in charge of procurement are in consultation and communication about the shape of the actual procurement process. How is the public to understand this as anything other than completely inappropriate?