Thank you so very much.
Thank you to the witnesses for appearing today. I do apologize that you were not able to come in because of a last-minute cancellation last week to have you appear.
I'm hoping that you can help me understand how procurement works. First and foremost, I want to say how disappointed I am that we did not take care of taxpayer dollars better, that we really had a lacklustre and faulty system for procurement. Ultimately, it was taxpayers and taxpayer dollars that suffered from this. I am trying to understand a bit better how that procurement process works, if that's okay.
Last week, we saw some wide variations on the amount of money that GC Strategies has received in contracts over the years, and there is confusion around how these contracts are reported to the government. Now, we also heard last week from witnesses that in order to get a contract, you have to have that relationship with whichever department it is that you're trying to get a contract from.
Can I ask PSPC to very briefly help us understand the differences between supply arrangements, standing offers, task authorizations and the like, and what those relationships have to do with whether you get the contracts or not?
I would also like to know point-blank if the people who have now taken over the name GC Strategies, or who have changed their name to GC Strategies, were known to procurement over the past decade.