Business of Supply  Madam Chair, this is a skills set shortage. To indicate that this is concocted is absolutely ridiculous.

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, I gave the numbers that we have who are employed with the translation bureau, and we are working hard to increase those numbers. It is a question of getting the skill set that is available.

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, I am going to raise myself to a higher level here, which I always call myself to do, and I am going to disregard the allegations. I am going to talk about what we have done for interpreters. We have actually increased—

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, the member is being selective in repeating the things that I am saying. I am talking about the commitments and the progress that we have made. We have made progress. We have a code of conduct. We have provisions in our contracts that say if forced labour is used, the

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, again, when we find out about forced labour issues that are raised to us, we take those seriously. We investigate those, and we will not procure product—

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, with respect to Nuctech, let me say that the safety and security of embassies is important. No contract has been issued. All issues regarding the security will be—

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, let me be very clear. There were seven bidders. Three were compliant. Nuctech was one of them, so they are on the standing order but with no call-ups, so there is no contract with Nuctech.

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, would the member clarify the question he is asking me as to whether it includes CBSA? Can he give me more clarification there?

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, there are none. There are no contracts that we have procured. If we have procured contracts for CBSA, none of them were from Nuctech. We have not procured from them.

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, my thanks to the member for his indication at the beginning of the question of where he was going with it. I agree that we have two official languages, and at all times it is important that we have interpretation, especially during the very exceptional circumstances

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, what I would say to that is that we do not want to procure any goods used where there is a violation of human rights. That is why we have taken the measures that we have in PSPC.

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, we were first advised of this in October 2021.

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, I just want to correct it. It was December 2020. That was the time we were first made aware. What I would say in this regard is that we take these allegations very seriously. When we hear of allegations, we act on those allegations.

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, what I would say is that as soon as we found out about the obligations, we stopped shipments. No more shipments were received. The contract was terminated subsequent to that.

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, it was in January 2021. That was when we ended shipments.