Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The position of the Government of Canada in ensuring that measures are taken to avoid employer-employee relationships has been a matter of policy for quite some time, both in our previous procurement policy, which was the contracting policy, and now reinforced in our new directive on the management of procurement, which came into effect in May of this year.
The new directive specifically requires that both contracting officials and departmental officials responsible for engaging in contracts are aware of the risks of creating employer-employee relationships and that they're taking measures prior to and during the performance of a contract to avoid those risks occurring. It includes terms and conditions in contracts to make sure that the nature of the arrangement in place is very clear to the recipients of those contracts and that those conditions protect the government in the case of an employer-employee relationship being created.