Government Operations committee  Good afternoon. I'm George Da Pont, the deputy minister of Public Services and Procurement.

Government Operations committee  Thank you for the question. You asked about the philosophy. I think the underlying philosophy is to get the best value for money. That really is the critical aspect in determining whether we own or we lease a property. For the specific details of how we make those decisions and the parking issue, I'll turn it over to Mr.

Government Operations committee  I think I'll ask Lisa Campbell, the ADM of acquisitions, to take you through that detail.

Government Operations committee  This will be the qualification exercise that will qualify those firms that will then be able to bid in the process.

Government Operations committee  No, I said we've started a request for qualification that will lead to the identification likely of a smaller number of—

Government Operations committee  Thank you very much for the question. In fact, a lot of that is laid out in the report on plans and priorities. Let me start with the West Block rehabilitation. We're now about 72% complete. Our expectation is that it would be completed by March 2016. As you are aware, I'm sure, since it may have disrupted some of your operations, we have been undertaking the evacuation activities as the first part of establishing a new visitor welcome centre.

Government Operations committee  Yes, I can give you an update. Just a couple of weeks ago, we launched the first step in that process. We have started a process to qualify a small number of warship designers and a small number of combat systems integrators who then would be in a position to bid for the actual work.

Government Operations committee  I can't, because the whole intent of the process is that whatever companies present themselves will be evaluated in terms of their overall capacity, and all that meet it will be in the qualified pool.

Government Operations committee  I think the main thing in proceeding with the shipbuilding strategy is it's the government that's going to continue to set the rules. It's the government that's going to continue to set the framework within which contracts will be let. As I've indicated, the philosophy is that subcontracts will be competitive.

Government Operations committee  Part of that is, in essence, a little bit of a bookkeeping issue that I'm not even going to try to explain. I'll ask our chief financial officer to take you through that.

Government Operations committee  Thank you for that excellent question. As the minister said, before you actually get into a contract, we have reversed the process. She said that before we would have put out a request for proposal, gone through a fair bit of the long tortuous process, and found out only at that point what industry capability was.

Government Operations committee  Thank you very much for that question. As you said and as the minister highlighted, one of the main purposes of the national shipbuilding procurement strategy has been to rebuild the shipping industry. We've seen a great deal of progress on that in the first phase. Irving Shipbuilding has invested over $300 million to upgrade its facilities.