Government Operations committee  Certainly. The process begins with an initial sourcing strategy conversation between our business line, our internal client or even our external clients, the procurement officer, and other elements of our organization that are relevant stakeholders. At that point in time, a needs assessment is done, including a landscape analysis of what the market offers, to determine whether there is a competitive marketplace, or whether it is a specific need that only one supplier could satisfy.

Government Operations committee  That goes a bit outside of my realm, but I can say that from a procurement perspective, it underpins the infrastructure that we're able to stand up for the Government of Canada. To speak to the broader interests of cybersecurity and Canada's cybersecurity strategy, I might invite the committee to spend some time specifically on that, potentially with some non-procurement folks and maybe with some security-related folks.

Government Operations committee  If I may, I'll start with a clarification that we've invoked the NSE on two occasions, not 1,000 occasions. There have been two invocations, and in the last fiscal year there have been 725 contracts subject to that invocation. All of those have been declared publicly on Open Government.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, our invocation was an omnibus invocation, but we're in constant dialogue with our security partners to do that threat assessment and ensure where we have an eye on the vulnerabilities and what we need to do.

Government Operations committee  If I may, Mr. Chair, invoking the NSE allows the Government of Canada to ask certain questions and require certain information that the trade agreements otherwise wouldn't allow, but as my colleague mentioned, it doesn't impact our sourcing strategy or our ability to sole-source.

Government Operations committee  In my opening remarks, Mr. Chair, I mentioned the process we went through for our initial invocations. At that time, our procurement functions still resided with PSPC, so that went back and forth between SSC, in its newborn state, and PSPC. Currently, that decision rests with the senior assistant deputy minister of corporate services, who is also our CFO.

Government Operations committee  Yes. In most cases, we wouldn't be limiting the bidders, but we'd be evaluating the technology that the bidders are proposing for a security profile.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chairman, maybe I'll start by building off the point of my colleague, in that from an SSC perspective, in terms of procurements that were subject to our NSE, 8% of them were sole-sourced, so 92% of them were competitive. Out of that 8%, I can say that the lion's share approaching 100% were for IP reasons, not for national security reasons.

Government Operations committee  At times, it can be limited to certain suppliers, but that's from a security standpoint as opposed to a technology standpoint.

Government Operations committee  These procurements are subject to open and transparent procurement. What the NSE allows us to do, with the supply chain integrity process, which I mentioned previously, is go in and check regular equipment for how it has been sourced, what its component pieces are, and whether it meets the security profile of the federal government.

Government Operations committee  I'd very much like to do that. I'll just caution the committee that this is a file now before the courts, so I'll disclose and discuss as much as I can. The honourable member is correct that the procurement of a supercomputer was part of a competitive process, and it was also part of an SSC process we share with PSPC, part of our collaborative process.

Government Operations committee  The purchase was disclosed through regular government processes, through our quarterly proactive disclosure. The procurement itself was initially posted on GETS, I believe. It's now on Buyandsell. So it was a public procurement. As to media announcements, that is something that isn't within my purview.

Government Operations committee  No, I would leave that to members of the committee and their colleagues to discuss, the pros and cons of communications.

Government Operations committee  I should say that there's a history on this file. The previous procurement for a supercomputer—the computer we were replacing—was also subject to an NSE. This specific computer is a massive system. It not only provides detailed information with regard to the weather but also supports a number of other departments in executing their missions, including National Defence, Health Canada, and the monitoring of emissions—potentially nuclear emissions.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, there have been a few publicized episodes within the federal government over the last number of years where, from an IT perspective, our systems have been compromised. Most recently, I could mention the National Research Council. There have been some examples, yes.