Mr. Chairman, ACAN is obviously a process by which a bid or a potential contract award can be publicized before it is finalized to determine whether or not there are any objections.
I asked for the statistics on this matter because I too was curious about it. I found out that of the 3,311 ACANs published in the year 2001, objections were raised in about 10% of the cases. That would be 323 cases. Of those cases that were objected to, the objections to 245 cases were found to be justified and the process went to tender. I think those statistics tend to verify that the process is working. In the vast majority of cases there are no objections but in cases where objections are raised they are in fact treated seriously.
If the hon. gentleman has some specific suggestions on how a properly functioning ACAN system can in fact be improved in the interests of competitiveness, I would very much like to hear what those suggestions are and I will treat them seriously.