Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, with respect, I would need to defer to legal advice on that, and I will take counsel on that.

Public Accounts committee  Yes. I'm not sure that we would normally disclose that type of information.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, the committee should be aware that Mr. Marshall will be out of the country continuing his medical leave next week, so in terms of the meeting scheduled for Tuesday—

Public Accounts committee  I'm not sure.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, there were three questions. On the first question, I'd come back to this point, the question being the basis on which the information was included in the bid. My answer would be that it was based on the best available information that was made available to the department at that point in time.

Public Accounts committee  Again, on the issue in terms of going back and working with departments, asking for validation of the business volumes was the action that was undertaken. With respect to the information going forward, I want to be clear that the practice at Public Works and Government Services, as instituted in terms of more than one person reviewing the bids, is not just in place for this transaction, but for all major transactions that will be going forward in the future.

Public Accounts committee  Okay.

Public Accounts committee  Yes.... Oh, I'm not sure. Richard could speak to that, Mr. Chair. I don't know whether all of those team members are still active in the federal public service. I can't make that commitment; I'm sorry.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, again I go back to two things, quickly. Number one, in a number of different areas, goods, and services, suppliers bid zero. I take the point that it was a very significant difference between the zero and the price in other bids, but second-judging that business intelligence as to why they would bid zero puts Public Works and Government Services on a very slippery slope.

Public Accounts committee  Again I simply say to the committee, Mr. Chair, that there were 289 questions asked. There were two questions with respect to the question that is being raised. In terms of whether there were flags going up when you look at that type of scenario, there were not, because all 289 questions were important.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, and it would have gone to the Treasury Board.

Public Accounts committee  Yes.

Public Accounts committee  Correct.

Public Accounts committee  As I said, none of them. It was a completely new team. That's when Mr. Goodfellow took on his responsibilities. He was not part of the second team for the 2002 contract. It was completely new.

Public Accounts committee  I don't have that information off the top of my head. We can easily check, though.