Thank you very much.
And thank you all for being here.
As an accountant and auditor, a person who has worked both in the private and public sectors, I can appreciate that the government does need to balance the need for hiring full-time people versus contracting. In any terms, $1 billion is a lot of money. I am glad to see from the Auditor General, in the samples she has utilized for the publicly traded contracts, that a 95% range seems to be a good range.
My concern is on the sole source contracts and the administrative deficiencies indicated on page 10 of her report.
I would like to ask some questions of you, Monsieur Guimont. How many of your managers are trained in financial accounting? How many understand the requirements for conflict of interest, return on investment, etc.? How large is your staff? How do you manage these things? It is critical that we get the best return on investment, but you need to balance your department's needs with a lot of other issues.
If you could give me some idea, I would like to proceed to the next question.