Thank you very much, Chair.
I want to echo my support for my Bloc colleague's request with regard to institutions that would support this work, because it's critical. It's been decades. We've had procurement issues since 2006, so it's particularly important.
I don't want to waste all my time on that, however. I want to turn our attention to page 13 of the report and finding 1.51, which reads:
We found that Public Services and Procurement Canada, as the government’s central purchasing and contracting authority, challenged the Canada Border Services Agency for proposing and using non-competitive processes for ArriveCAN and recommended various alternatives.
My goodness. What a great thing to have done, but the problem is that the checks and balances didn't work. Unfortunately, the Auditor General's finding after that is:
Despite alternative options proposed by Public Services and Procurement Canada, and statements from Canada Border Services Agency officials that other vendors were capable of doing the work, the agency continued to use a non-competitive approach.
It's disappointing. I don't even know what I can say, Minister, to try to highlight how disappointing it is to know that we had an opportunity. You were the minister. Your officials reached out and said, “Hey, there's a red flag. This is a problem. You can't be using non-competitive approaches like this, non-competitive contracts. Why are you giving your buddies access when you shouldn't be?” However, the CBSA continued business as usual.
What do you have to say to Canadians who had faith in Public Services and Procurement Canada, but lost that faith in its ability to keep contractors and proposers of contracts accountable when non-competitive approaches are used?