Public Accounts committee  Thank you for the question. In the past, our procurement officer would receive documents in different formats. Those could be CD, fax, hard copies or email. Basically, there were a myriad ways of communicating. The good thing, a very positive thing, about the e-procurement solution, which will solve a lot of these issues, is that all the documentation, all the interactions between a contracting authority and suppliers, will be part of the platform.

Public Accounts committee  I don't have the knowledge of what was done by the DG at that point.

Public Accounts committee  It's possible that the DG did raise an alarm. We simply don't have the information to corroborate that fact.

Public Accounts committee  From the information I've been able to get, it's gone up to the director general level in the organization. We'll get you those emails, or the names of the people, of course.

Public Accounts committee  I don't have his name. I wasn't with that group. I don't have that information on hand right now, but I'll be happy to provide it.

Public Accounts committee  The ultimate decision to enter into a non-competitive arrangement rests with the client.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, task authorizations are co-signed afterwards. Before I venture any further, I must say that I wouldn't know exactly what we co-signed. In this case, procedures were followed with regard to the notices that were given by our staff. This advice was given proactively, but the ultimate decision to choose a non-competitive procurement process was the client's.

Public Accounts committee  I take due note of the request.

Public Accounts committee  As mentioned, our department really played its role with respect to the Canada Border Services Agency. The department warned the agency that there were risks and advocated a competitive approach. However, as the Auditor General mentioned, the decision ultimately rests with the client and I think it's important to put that in context.

Public Accounts committee  I would say that the department does administer a very high volume of contracts per year: $26 billion. A lot of task authorizations are signed. That's not at all an excuse—

Public Accounts committee  —but do we need to strengthen our mechanisms or procedures to see why these task authorizations were co-signed? There are lessons to be learned. As the deputy minister mentioned, we sent out very clear instructions to our employees on December 4 and asked them to make sure that things were clearly defined when task authorizations were in play.

Public Accounts committee  The measures that have been taken by our department since November 28 are very serious. A lot of improvements have been made. There has been awareness-raising among clients. We work with our clients and our employees. I'd be very surprised if in the future we see task authorizations that are poorly defined and very vague, even in terms of the evaluation criteria and procedures, to which Deputy Minister Mills was referring.

Public Accounts committee  I think it's something we want to work on with our staff on to make sure they have the tools to perform that challenge function. Also, one of the initiatives we're continuing to implement is e-procurement solutions. In the past, what was happening was that you could have all sorts of documents being filed in different ways.

Public Accounts committee  As Mr. Mills pointed out, our role is to provide advice. We trust the client to make the right decision in light of specific challenges and circumstances that they are facing. We can provide advice, but ultimately it rests with the client to decide whether it's an urgent requirement, from their perspective, that would justify a non-competitive approach.

Public Accounts committee  Unfortunately, I don't have that information at hand. I understand that a director general had, for example, been copied on the emails, but someone would have to provide the information to the committee to have—