Government Operations committee  To my understanding, Mr. Chair, our department has assisted them, but certainly it's the CBSA.

Government Operations committee  In most cases, they come to us to use the TBIPS, which has a requirement to actually compete it to a number of firms already pre-qualified on that instrument.

Government Operations committee  Under the code for procurement, suppliers are supposed to act honourably and ethically, and if we were to find out that they were not doing so and that they had misrepresented themselves, we could stop work on a contract. We could set aside a contract. If it was founded, we could terminate for default.

Government Operations committee  Yes, Mr. Chair, there are vendor performance measures under which we could suspend them from being able to do business with the Government of Canada for a period of time. In extreme cases, if there were criminal findings of fraud and the like, the integrity regime could come into play, and they would be barred for up to 10 years.

Government Operations committee  I'll ask Levent to answer. He has a long career in procurement and may have better examples.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, I do not have any knowledge of Deloitte being in a penalty box.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, we would have the information of contract values that were awarded, but how much was expended—and some of the task authorizations—would have to come from CBSA.

Government Operations committee  You're correct in the sense that it is the responsibility of the department, in this case CBSA, to determine what their needs are and the criteria they will evaluate against those needs and to set the grids. Then they actually undertake what we would call the technical evaluation of looking at the qualifications and experiences of those resources against their needs.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, we undertake 10,000 contractual items a year. A large part of that would be entering into new contracts. The rest would be things such as issuing task authorizations or amending existing contracts.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, I would say that it's not that simple. Each department will provide departmental resources. In many cases there would be a project. There would be a team that's working on the project that would undertake the evaluation of those résumés and whatnot. It's not necessarily that they have a dedicated team to review résumés and do the technical authority; it's really on a case-by-case basis, based on which unit of the department is undertaking that project.

Government Operations committee  How much they validate the information is a good question for the technical authorities. Their focus is really looking at the résumés and seeing if the years of work and types of experience are related to what's being requested. I'm not sure what other levels of investigation and verification they do across departments of whether they actually attended the university that's on the résumé.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, I'd say that they add a number of values. One is sourcing people with the required skills and putting together teams, and yes, they do manage a lot of the administrative tasks in terms of payroll and whatnot for those consultants, and in managing the legal relationships in between.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, I would agree that the fees charged were reasonable.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, $11 million went to pay for IT specialists as well as the people who worked for GC Strategies.

Government Operations committee  Did they receive bonuses? Yes. During the period of this time, there would have been executives who received bonuses.