Government Operations committee  --but I can assure you that when the requirements are being defined, all aspects are being looked at. In this case when you buy trucks, you also have to take into consideration the servicing, the maintenance of those.

Government Operations committee  It could be also included in the requirement definition, and it could also be included in the resulting contract. The other point I want to make is that for those large military requirements--and $30 million is quite important--we also do have considerations that we call the in

Government Operations committee  You understand that we have to live with the trade agreements.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, as explained by my colleague from DFAIT, procurement is subject to trade agreements. There are some exclusions--

Government Operations committee  --but most of our procurements are subject to trade agreements, and there are different trade agreements. Of course, today we are not also talking about the AIT, which is the Canadian trade agreement. A requirement such as buses is subject to that, so therefore we have to open th

Government Operations committee  Based on memory, there were 33.

Government Operations committee  Thanks for your comments. One of our objectives is always to improve. Related to the latest competitive process for free-standing furniture, we will review. We have offered debriefings to all the firms that did not qualify. So far we have had only one request, but we are quite o

Government Operations committee  The information I have is that there were 27.

Government Operations committee  Part of the competitive process and the rules of this RFSO is that for manufacturers that qualified, because we did include an aboriginal set-aside as part of the rules, the aboriginal firms that were tied to those manufacturers also received a standing offer.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, I'd like to make two points. First of all, we are committed to a fair, open, and transparent process, and as such we have to also live with the results of that competitive process. If you look at both the cabinets and free-standing furniture, we did not limit the numb

Government Operations committee  I am not aware of any policy on consolidating purchases.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, Madam, let me go back to your examples. You correctly mentioned that, for free-standing and office furniture, we once had 40 suppliers and the number has dropped. This is the reason. After analyzing the needs of the federal government, and having listened to representa

Government Operations committee  Regarding the free-standing furniture, in accordance with the numbers provided to me, in the past we had 27 standing offer orders. As a result of the competitive process, we awarded five standing offers to companies, plus five aboriginal standing offers, for a total of ten. For

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, Madam, when we are developing a procurement strategy, we consider a number of factors, the first being an analysis of federal government needs.

Government Operations committee  Monsieur le président, madame, based on the information we have right now, I do not see any increase in sole-source contracting related to the infrastructure program with respect to, for example, real property. There are two reasons. The first is that when you look at the natur