Government Operations committee  We might consider those things, but if the old buildings are not rehabilitated, we will not have any work.

Government Operations committee  From what I know of SNC-Lavalin's contracts, the firm does add a certain percentage to the contracts and mandates that it offers. I cannot say whether it does that for all contracts, but that is certainly the case with professional services. If I am asked to bid in order to do work or offer professional services to SNC-Lavalin, and I submit a $25,000 bid, SNC-Lavalin will top up that amount with its contract management expenses.

Government Operations committee  We submit it to the client. In the case of SNC-Lavalin, they retain our services and ask us to assess the state of the walls of the Parliament buildings in Ottawa, for example. In that case, we would send a team that would go up on scaffolding to study the walls and check if the pointing in the stonework is solid.

Government Operations committee  Absolutely, because we are bound by the obligation to perform. Currently, we are dealing with the National Research Council of Canada, where a building will be renovated. As we have been hired to do the drawings for all the outer walls—which are made of glass—we met with the people from the council.

Government Operations committee  It is the same thing for a business; it is an issue of accountability. When they bid on a job, the less time it takes, the more profitable it will be, the more it will be cost-effective. In any case, they will have technical documents to follow. They will therefore be obliged to follow those documents that have been prepared in order to do the repairs.

Government Operations committee  No, I cannot say that my sales have gone down. What is much weaker is the relationship we have with the managers. The biggest difference is that before, we knew if we had contracts and why if we did not. Now, what we do not know is what contracts we are not getting, what contracts we might have had as well as what contracts we did not get and why we did not get them.

Government Operations committee  It is not an issue of uncertainty, it is rather an issue of what is unknown. The problem is that now, I do not know what contracts are on offer. The government is not telling me, and the manager is not telling me. As I was explaining earlier on, if you are doing some work at your house and you do not tell me, I cannot offer you my services.

Government Operations committee  We only deal with project directors at SNC-Lavalin. We work regularly with them. They are people we know well, to whom we provide services and who use our services regularly. On Friday, I asked one of the project directors at SNC-Lavalin what the rules are that govern them. I asked her what the process was, for example, for a contract that had been awarded to a Montreal firm and why we had not been invited to bid.

Government Operations committee  It is an issue of all aspects of building maintenance, whether you are talking about structural parts, the mechanical systems, the ventilation system, the lighting system, maintenance and replacement of carpets, the parquetry, replacing the roof, masonry work, painting, the structure, the exterior, the roof.

Government Operations committee  In fact, my business specializes in assessing the state of the exterior shell of buildings. For example, we studied the state of the marble cladding of the walls at l'Esplanade Laurier; we studied all of the brick siding on the Terrasses de la Chaudière; we studied all of the exterior siding of the buildings of phases I, II, III and IV of Place du Portage; we have studied all of the buildings, such as the Promenade building on Sparks Street or another example is the Jeanne-Mance building.

Government Operations committee  I believe SNC-Lavalin manages 319 buildings.

Government Operations committee  Yes, we did.

Government Operations committee  Yes, all that is over now. To my knowledge, maintenance contracts are granted exclusively to SNC-Lavalin.

Government Operations committee  To my knowledge, there is only SNC-Lavalin.

Government Operations committee  What we want to find out are the rules that govern the government, and especially those that govern Public Works and Government Services Canada and SNC-Lavalin. Obviously, PWGSC is a serious, organized and structured organization that has existed for a very long time and has experience in overseeing maintenance of federal government buildings.