Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Jeglic and Mr. Rabinovitch, welcome back. I appreciate everything that the two of you and your team have done over the years. I know you've been with us several times, and I have to say, of all the government departments we've dealt with, your team has certainly been, head and shoulders, the most dedicated to trying to improve our procurement process and other processes, so thanks very much.
I want to start going through your annual report and just pick out a couple of items and ask you to comment on them.
On the first page, it talks about the emergency spending, with the comment, “does not provide justification to set aside the duties of fairness and transparency that exist in non-emergency situations.” Has that become more of an issue? The reason I ask is that I spoke recently in the House about the government ignoring Treasury Board rules, and the comment came back that sometimes, with the volume of spending that we have, it's okay to ignore some rules.
Are you seeing an increase in departments trying to justify not following rules or the transparency, or using COVID or the volume as a justification, or is this just a warning for the future?