Thank you very much, witnesses, for being here again. As my colleague said, it's refreshing to have a good Auditor General report and your comments about the significance of working closely with the Auditor General, to help go along with your action plan, your management plan, your procurement.
I'm new on the committee, and I think departments sometimes work in silos. I'm trying to figure out how we can transfer some of those comments, but mostly some of the action plans that have been put together. You can just change some of the wording. If they're development plans for departments, how can the government take those and transfer the ones we can use to other departments? Regardless of who we are around this table, we quite honestly want government to be looking after our public dollars. We're taxpayers also.
You have so many employees--14,000, I think. It was interesting for me to understand the sequence of events in procurement: the Treasury Board, the minister, and Public Works. The 1,700 trained people will also have jobs to do.
Mr. Guimont, you talk about a 9% turnover and the number of contracts that come due each year. I'd be interested in understanding how the contracts are awarded. That goes back to the assurance that we want to see public dollars spent well. What are some of the challenges your staff face in managing those contracts so there is accountability and transparency to the general public? We often just hear about the other side of it. We're spending so many dollars, so how do you make it accountable?
As we move into this next section and away from Public Works into our infrastructure, this is going to be a significant issue.