Thank you for the question and thank you, Commissioner, for allowing me to respond.
What we had in place at the time was a standing offer to procure the carbines. Our view was that there was no requirement for us to bundle the requirement, the request for process, as the needs were determined, in order to expedite the contracting process.
When you have a standing offer, you can do call-ups against those standing offers and, in our view, it would not have resulted in any savings. To reiterate what the commissioner said, we purchased those under the munitions supply program which has provided Public Services and Procurement with the means to contract large quantities of small arms.
There are four companies that are designated as sources as part of the munitions supply program, one being Colt Canada, where we did procure the carbines. We do not feel it would have resulted in any savings. We had standing offers in place and we followed the process. Bundling of those would not have resulted in any savings.