Government Operations committee  Mr. Chairman, thank you for this question. The fairness monitoring policy framework was adopted by the Department of Public Works nearly three years ago, in mid-summer 2005. It's a framework that helps guide us to determine when additional assurance might be required for some of

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chairman, before turning the question over, I want simply like to clarify that— I want to confirm that the audit you are referring to is an audit of 12 projects that was done by the chief of review services at DND. As such, I'd like to turn to my colleague, Dan Ross.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chairman and Madam Bourgeois, it is true that on the human resources front, the Department of Public Works like all of the departments is facing certain challenges, because a certain percentage of our procurement experts will be retiring. Having said that, many efforts have

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chairman, I would like to refer the question to Mr. Williston, who thus will have the opportunity to give you more specific details on his budgetary envelope to provide services to National Defence.

Government Operations committee  I don't have precise statistics to make a comparison with other countries. I can say, though, through our exchange of information and discussion, that it takes quite a long time everywhere, mainly when you deal with customized specification.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, one of the big differences, and I think my colleague from the Department of National Defence hinted at it, is that if you compare us with the Americans, you'll see they do much more sole-sourcing than we do. A study of the procurements we did for National Defence in t

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chairman, Ms. Bourgeois: we mention that we have project teams in the following context. Let us take the example of a major project for the Department of National Defence. We talked about a number of them today. In order to conduct the procurement process properly, it goes wi

Government Operations committee  I understand. As far as National Defence projects are concerned, I have beside me Mr. Terry Williston who is the director general responsible for departmental staff who are part of this project team on behalf of the Department of Public Works. Over 400 people report to him and ar

Government Operations committee  Could I add on to this? I would just like to say that from a public works department perspective, we have ongoing discussions mainly with GSA in the States, and with their Department of Defense, and at the same time we do have exchanges with European countries. It's very interes

Government Operations committee  There are two questions: what defines a large project, and how long might it take for small procurements. The Government of Canada, through Treasury Board, has a policy that details what makes a major crown project or not. One of the key criteria is that it's over $100 million.

Government Operations committee  I'd just like to add very quickly that one of the key things we've done is work smarter and better. We are now making huge efforts to work in parallel. We are trying to combine the project approvals we are looking for with getting advanced contract approval. Again, that really ha

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chairman, I would like to add that in Canada, there is more competition. A study done over the last five years shows that close to 80% of our procedures are competitive. The fact that there are more redress mechanisms in Canada is very important. That is because of the free t

Government Operations committee  Madam Chair, I believe the member is referring to an incident that happened in the spring in one of the aircraft. However, everything has been repaired, and the aircraft have been delivered.

Government Operations committee  Yes.

Government Operations committee  Regarding the JSS, there is a current competitive process taking place. As such, we are not at liberty to discuss what is happening in relation to the bids that we've been receiving for the evaluation process, and this goes back to one of your earlier comments related to the secr