Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Natural Resources is currently outsourcing two full-time senior ATIP consultant resources. They've invited suppliers to bid on the one-year contract, with three one-year options to extend. The estimated value of the contract is $3.75 million.
Based on that estimate, the contract would work out to about $469,000 per year for an ATIP consultant. I'll hazard a guess that this is well above what an ATIP officer would be paid as a public service employee, and I'm imagining that a significant amount of the contract will go to the firm awarded the contract and not the person actually doing the work.
What are the policies around contract renewal? For example, do companies have an automatic right to exercise an option to renew? Also, is a contract for up to four years, potentially, addressing a short-term staffing shortage?
Maybe someone from PSPC or the Treasury Board can answer.