Government Operations committee  I'm not sure. I'll ask Mr. Duvnjak if he would like to add to that, or you should ask the department when they appear next. Milan, I don't know if you'd like to jump in.

Government Operations committee  I believe he should ask the department that question. I think that's theirs to provide.

Government Operations committee  In the contracts that we looked at, we did look at what mechanisms they put in place. Normally there are many checks and balances, as I mentioned earlier, that help reduce the risk around a procurement: ethical ones, integrity ones and financial viability; there's a risk assessment.

Government Operations committee  I'm sorry, but I'll have to ask one of my team members to talk to that level of detail. I don't know if Milan or Jean want to join in.

Government Operations committee  You are talking about Public Services and Procurement Canada's supply stream. Is that correct?

Government Operations committee  You are asking me whether the department is now better prepared to deal with an emergency situation. However, you should put this question to its officials. We rather look at the way the department reacted and changed its process to meet very important immediate needs in a highly competitive market.

Government Operations committee  I don't know whether my recommendation was only for Public Services and Procurement Canada. I think it was for the federal government as a whole. My recommendation would be to recognize the need and usefulness of investing in what we don't see. For example, I am thinking of an IT system that supports an important program involving the stockpiling of equipment, such as masks, in the national stockpile or of resolving long–standing issues with the shortage of health care professionals in indigenous communities.

Government Operations committee  Well, I haven't looked at all of them. I have looked at a few of them. I'm satisfied that they provided valuable recommendations. I am not satisfied that action was not taken. I don't believe that I need to make recommendations for departments to keep acting on things they already know they should act on.

Government Operations committee  One of the recommendations we made is that they need to develop a comprehensive plan about the national emergency strategic stockpile, and I think that includes many things. That includes determining the thresholds of certain types of equipment that should be in place, making sure they have a system to support that so that they have good-quality data.

Government Operations committee  I think a few of them are for emergency response. Being reactive is very tiring and difficult. The scarce resource allocation strategy is one that I think has a bit more of a long-term life to it, as well as the long-term supply and demand model. What I hope the departments will do is act on the three main issues they have known for about a decade.

Government Operations committee  Do you mean based on what we saw in this report on the responsiveness? What we saw here during procurement is that Public Services and Procurement Canada accepted risks. One of them was invoking the national security exception, which means that a procurement can happen without a competitive process.

Government Operations committee  All I can tell you is what we were able to review in documents and in talking with officials of the purpose of the national emergency strategic stockpile. It's meant to be sort of the last line of defence after provinces and territories have tried to purchase their own and have looked at their own stockpile.

Government Operations committee  I believe that the Public Health Agency has committed to learn and to take action, so to learn that what happened—

Government Operations committee  What we saw during the pandemic was that they didn't keep going with the way they were going. Requests for assistance, which were how the provinces and territories could access the stockpile, stopped and they moved to bulk procurement. I do think you should be asking the Public Health Agency whether or not it's going to address long-standing issues.

Government Operations committee  We asked the Public Health Agency and the other departments to provide metrics in their responses. I trust they'll do that in their detailed action plans. I know the public accounts committee will ask for a detailed action plan when it studies this report. What I can tell you is that I am frustrated with the fact that the government has not been acting on known issues.