Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you very much for the invitation to brief you today on the Department of National Defence's response to the Auditor General's October 2007 audit of security and contracting. As you know, my name is Scott

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chairman, if I may respond to that and help put the question and the observation about the 8,500 contracts between 2002 and 2007 into context, National Defence has more than 20,000 buildings, more than 13,000 works, and more than 5,000 kilometres of roads, so the construction

Public Accounts committee  Coming up with an answer to that question is one of the goals of our action plan. Most of the 8,500 projects I spoke about deal with things like home roofing. We are looking to find an answer to that question.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, as I said earlier, the Minister of National Defence has accepted all of the Auditor General's findings, whether regarding the North Bay project or those of a more general nature. We are taking this very seriously. The paragraph you mentioned, Mr. Laforest, states that

Public Accounts committee  We are reviewing all those contracts as part of our action plan. We have begun to...

Public Accounts committee  The Department of National Defence had and still has a multi-party security program. This means that everywhere National Defence is present, whether in Canada or abroad, a security system is in place. Mr. Shuster is a key element of that system, but there are also military polic

Public Accounts committee  That is correct, sir.

Public Accounts committee  That's correct.

Public Accounts committee  As I stated in response to one of the earlier questions, the department has accepted the findings. That is clear and is normal practice. I would also say that we have accepted the responsibility for resolving any of the shortcomings and weaknesses that are there. On the specific

Public Accounts committee  Yes. I was not a party to the discussions on this project involving the Office of the Auditor General and the department. If possible, I would like to gather more information on the key questions that the OAG raises in points 1.74 or 1.75. Nevertheless, I can tell you that the

Public Accounts committee  Yes. In a follow-up to the Auditor General's report, all of the responsible officials were directed by the Chief of the Defence Staff and the deputy minister in the development of the action plan. I am here today partly because of the seriousness that the head of the Canadian For

Public Accounts committee  It was in October, in following up on the report, when the department wrote to the Auditor General with the action plan and our response to it.

Public Accounts committee  The correspondence I'm referring to was addressed to the Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff, who in the chain of command is above Lieutenant-Colonel Shuster. So that would explain in part why he wasn't a personal addressee on that.

Public Accounts committee  I don't have that information myself at this time.

Public Accounts committee  Yes.