Government Operations committee  We've had people come to talk to us about the complexity of the RFPs. We've had people say they didn't really understand the requirements. We've had people tell us that there are too many mandatories in it. We've had them asking why we need all these mandatory requirements just f

Government Operations committee  We'll take note of your concerns and the issues you've raised. We'll put them into our planning hopper and see what we can do.

Government Operations committee  I think there are exceptions provided to the fundamental principles of competition. For contracts under $25,000, that's one of the exceptions. You can invoke an exception, but I would just add that it's not automatic. You need to have a reason to go to this contractor and you nee

Government Operations committee  That's for services.

Government Operations committee  One of the things we're looking at for the next year is the whole regime around the rules for contracts under $25,000. One of the things we'd like to explore is how those possibilities are publicized, so that everybody has a chance to know they exist. Perhaps MERX can do somethin

Government Operations committee  Right? You're already negotiating with somebody who has inside information. As a development of that, I'll come back to the earlier question of people giving up. Yes, they find it frustrating. You have somebody you want to go to, they say, and they don't have a chance. Why shoul

Government Operations committee  Madam Chair, I'll make an opening comment and then ask my colleague here to answer in detail. The supplier community has expressed a lot of frustration with standing offers. It's not difficult to understand. For furniture, let's say you go from ninety suppliers to eight or ten s

Government Operations committee  Yes, we've heard that. We've heard it in regional discussions with suppliers and we've heard it from supplier associations. You have to keep in mind that in our business every time a contract is awarded there is one winner, and there may be four losers, and the four losers are go

Government Operations committee  ACANs have been a subject of concern to all parliamentary committees for a long time. The Auditor General has written three or four chapters on it, I believe. I really think it's time to rethink that policy. There's no question that you increase transparency when you give publi

Government Operations committee  I'm just saying that maybe we should think about that. We've talked to Treasury Board and we've talked to people at Public Works about a rethink. When you look at the application of that policy, there are things that really bother us. For example, we've found files where people

Government Operations committee  On the complaints side, I think people went back to the department they had a complaint about. That was the process. There was no independent forum, other than CITT, for the awarding of contracts. CITT, if you recall, has no mandate relating to contract administration. They look

Government Operations committee  That's a food question. Let me just say that when we were created, the background for when we came in was that it was following the sponsorship era. The procurement community had taken a huge beating. Let me be up front about it. Morale was pretty bad. Initially when we went

Government Operations committee  Madam Chair, Mr. Martin can add to my experience that I've appeared before parliamentary committees, including his, many times, and it was a learning experience. Let me say that the one thing I learned at the AG's office is that in order to have credibility you need to have ind

Government Operations committee  Madam Chair, let me just start by saying thank you for the kind words. It's the staff who do the work. We'll pass the message back to them. I'm sure it will be very encouraging to everybody. I'm going to ask Madam Trombetti to answer your question.

Government Operations committee  I think what I heard from people was a concern being expressed that there were some transactions in which there was a fundamental lack of that. That's no secret. I think if you look at the Auditor General's reports, at internal audit reports, and at other reviews that have been d