Public Accounts committee  Yes.

Public Accounts committee  There were 289 questions answered. The problem was, I think, with the answers to those two questions. It wasn't that those two questions went unanswered.

Public Accounts committee  The answer was that the information contained in the RFP, after verification with the departments involved, was the best information that was available.

Public Accounts committee  The question, as I understood it, Mr. Chair, was whether there was any collusion with respect to this contract. I believe I answered the question directly that there was no collusion that I am aware of. Every scrap of information that we have available--and I believe the Auditor General has asked for an opinion on this as well--says there was nothing untoward about this contract.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, the documents that were referred to in the question do not exist. They are not on the file. The answer I responded with earlier--and I apologize for any confusion--was, in general, why you would have 75-25. It was a general, not a specific answer.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, the 75-25 would have been a product of looking at the impact of the quality of services to Canadian armed forces personnel and RCMP personnel. As you can appreciate, a relocation for a family is very stressful, so having quality services and making sure that any firm that was awarded the contract would have very full and technical capability to deliver the services....

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, to respond to the question, let me first say that the lack of documentation on the file in terms of the 75-25 was an oversight. It will be corrected in the future files. Let me also respond, Mr. Chair, that in terms of having one person do the financials, we acknowledge that on major contracts such as this, and going forward, it needs to be addressed.

Public Accounts committee  —based on their best business intelligence. So can we go back and say—

Public Accounts committee  In terms of asking the question, again, it's a question of looking at what bidders are providing—

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, first I'll come back to a couple of points. There were two of 289 questions raised with respect to property management. Second, Mr. Chair, bidding zero—

Public Accounts committee  There are two issues here. Firstly, as a bidding strategy, it is not uncommon--it is not frequent--for bidders to come in and bid zero on certain items. The second point is that we have jurisprudence with respect to our ability to compare one bid to another. In looking at—

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, I am absolutely unaware of any collusion in any regard with respect to the 2004 contract, or any other contracts related to this file.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, that's a vital question. I hope I answered it very clearly. Pardon me?

Public Accounts committee  I would need to look at the comparisons. The administration fee—

Public Accounts committee  Actually, there were a number of points raised. In terms of how that price would compare with the private sector, you need to understand that it's a very complex bundle of services. So we would need to do a detailed analysis to look at the comparatives between how the service is provided to Government of Canada employees and in the private sector.