Information & Ethics committee  Yes, the process is the same.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, there have been situations where conflicts of interest were declared. In those cases, as I said earlier, we ask the contracting officer to exclude the person with the conflict of interest from the contract award decision-making process. This may apply to a direct manager requesting a sole-source contract, or a member of the evaluation committee for a request for proposal, who would then be removed from the committee.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, it is the same process.

Information & Ethics committee  No.

Information & Ethics committee  That's right.

Information & Ethics committee  It is not. In my many years of procurement in various departments, I have seen many contracts of a sole-source nature or a competitive nature from ministers' offices. I wouldn't say directly from a minister, but from a minister's office this is quite common, actually.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. We usually deal with the office and not with the minister.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. In the contracting process, there is usually an individual identified as either the project authority or sometimes the technical authority, and that person's role in the contracting process is to monitor progress once the contract is awarded and to ensure that the goods or services are delivered in accordance with the initial request and the contract.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. We do have knowledge that the receipt of service, in this case, was confirmed by the chief of staff in the minister's office, and we do have approval on the invoice that the services were rendered.

Information & Ethics committee  I would be guessing at that point, but I'm sure there were communications with respect to the regular...whether there was receipt of an invoice and whether the invoice had the proper—

Information & Ethics committee  Sure. What I can say is that the scope of work as outlined referred to media sessions for ministerial staff.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, it was for two sessions. That's correct. In that scope of work, there was an outline of certain things—and I'm going by memory. There was a description of the services outlining what exactly would be delivered. This is what was confirmed by the chief of staff afterwards.

Information & Ethics committee  I have been working for the federal government for 23 years.

Information & Ethics committee  I am also aware.

Information & Ethics committee  No.