Government Operations committee  There are so many problems with joint bids. First, we're a very competitive industry, so it's totally against our nature. It's not unreasonable for somebody to turn around and say “Your nature may be so and so, but circumstances force you to go against what's natural”. That's on

Government Operations committee  I'll address the first one, because it was one of mine. I said the system is a good system. It's not perfect, and there are improvements that could be made to it. I didn't say it wasn't good.

Government Operations committee  In January of this year, there were 81 suppliers who actually supplied. One of those had a zero against it, so there were 80 suppliers.

Government Operations committee  First of all, sir, I now realize why you're a politician.

Government Operations committee  To be honest, I've never known anything quite on this magnitude. There was one instance many years ago, when Public Works and Government Services did sort of sideswipe us a bit. It was absolutely minor compared to this. This has been a major change, and personally I am absolutely

Government Operations committee  I think that's a very good summation of the situation. Certainly a very large number of companies under what was proposed—what concerns us is that this RFSO is still on the table, and the government is still insisting on talking about this, as opposed to saying okay, let's really

Government Operations committee  Did I? Our industry mainly comprises very small businesses. There is no exception to that in the supply of temporary help to the federal government. Of the 50 or 60 real suppliers of temporary help to the federal government—I'm not talking about the people who are actually on th

Government Operations committee  The first thing we think should be addressed is the fact that any suggestions that have been made so far institute a system that is not conducive to the supply of services, and particularly the supply of the services of people, because people are very complex, as you well know. W

Government Operations committee  No, I'm not suggesting the status quo is fine. I think what we've got basically should be fixed up, and I think there are a number of different ways. I won't bore you with the complexities of doing it, but I think we should sit down and say okay, we've got a system that we develo

Government Operations committee  We wrote and requested a meeting on February 20. We didn't get a reply. We were asked by departmental officials to submit some information, which we did. We were called to a meeting on June 20, I think it was, where we set out the proposals we had. We were cut short by a gentle

Government Operations committee  I could actually help you a little bit there. Had those figures been looked at as they should have been looked at in the first place--that $80 million was not really part of our supply at all--I don't think we'd even be part of this discussion. We wouldn't be here today, because

Government Operations committee  I'd like to add to that. During that time, what would have happened? The prices would come down because the bidders would bid prices lower. The wages might have come down or they might not. It depends on how low a wage people would accept. But what would have happened is, becaus

Government Operations committee  The statistics show that in the last year the total dollar volume of the temporary outstanding offer was in the region of $220 million. If we took out those categories that have gone on to the standing offer and in fact are not really part of the temporary help standing offer, or

Government Operations committee  I'm here with Meredith Egan because I've been a director of our association for 20 years. I've dealt with the federal government for a similar amount of time. I've been on the national government relations committee for our association since I was first appointed to the board of