Mr. Speaker, I want to cover three areas, the cost savings, the tendering process that the hon. member talked about, and the openness of the process to public scrutiny.
He is right, DND accounts for 75 per cent of all the moves and in the past four years the government tariff has been reduced by 25 per cent, which actually represents savings of about $45 million to the government.
The government tariff has a special clause agreed to by the van line that guarantees the lowest tariff. Although you might have isolated examples of lower cost moves, the fact is that the government is guaranteed the lowest rate by the moving industry.
The cost of a move can be influenced by different factors, such as the distance involved, the volume and weight of the furniture, the time of the year, the destination, et cetera. So making comparisons can be very difficult.
Regarding the tendering process, no carriers in Canada are excluded. The 900 moving companies across Canada are affiliated with and represented by the van lines which bid on the government tenders. All will have an opportunity to share the government business this year.
The current government procedures for dealing with van lines were thoroughly reviewed and endorsed by officers of the Department of Industry and they do not contradict the 1983 prohibition order against members of the moving industry. The member is right. The potential bidders must meet a certain criteria and these criteria have been relaxed somewhat to encourage competition inasmuch as the requirement for the fiscal year 1994-95 called for local representation in at least seven provinces representing 55 per cent of the business done by the interdepartmental committee to meet departmental location requirements. The previous requirement was 85 per cent in all the provinces.
The tender for the fiscal year 1994-95 closed on February 11 this year and the results have been determined. The government is going to realize savings in the millions of dollars as a result of a reduction of over 7 per cent from last year's government tariff. Our officials are continuing to pursue other costs savings initiatives in this area and details of the winning bid will be made available to anybody on request subject of course to considerations of privacy and commercial confidentiality.
I trust that this update is helpful to the hon. member.