Thank you, Madam Chair.
Welcome, everyone.
First, I want to say thank you to the Canadian Armed Forces. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of them were at Woodbridge Vista, a long-term care facility in my riding, and performed duties that were exemplary.
I want to thank them.
When I read the Auditor General's audit, I went through the details of the audit objective. I'd like to turn my attention to what the audit objective was in terms of this being an “independent assurance report”, if I can use that term, and go back to what this committee is focused on.
Deputy Minister, in your opening comments, you had this reference in your notes:
In February 2020, National Defence awarded a contract to Price Waterhouse Coopers...to identify potential options to modernize our supply chain network design. I note that a review of this scale has not been undertaken since early 2000.
I found that very surprising. For most organizations, their supply chains are a critical component of the organization's success or failure—if not the most critical—be it a retail grocer or National Defence. Can you maybe elaborate on the terms of reference for the contract? I'm surprised that I'm not hearing something to the extent of what supply chain technology is utilized now in National Defence, if it's SAS or SAP or whatever technological....
Can you speak to that, please? Thank you.