Government Operations committee  I've seen various numbers. We haven't validated any of them, but we're talking about hundreds of thousands--not 10,000 or 20,000. We're talking about $1 billion to $2 billion worth. The majority of the contracts issued by the Government of Canada are for under $25,000--in that ra

Government Operations committee  There is the potential, and our challenge is to do really well in our practice reviews. It's a bit like health care. You can either put a lot of medicine and money into fixing people's symptoms or you can say, “You should be exercising more, eating better, and doing more preventi

Government Operations committee  I'd be absolutely delighted to talk about our mandate.

Government Operations committee  A large part of our mandate is to prove the transparency of government procurement. The way to do that is to simplify the government processes and explain to people that things they think are complicated may not be that complicated. There is a better way. I'd be very delighted to

Government Operations committee  The answer to the last question is absolutely. We've been prepared to receive complaints from the 1st of May. The legal limitation on that is that the issue about which you are complaining must have happened after the 1st of May. The government did not backdate it; it's a forward

Government Operations committee  Let me explain and clarify this again. There are two sides to the contract. The people have signed legal obligations here. And let me just be very emphatic about this: we are not lobbyists for suppliers. We are not apologists for the government, but we are not lobbyists. We have

Government Operations committee  This is a very important question and a very interesting question intellectually. Part of the problem we face is trying to get information from government on how many departments issue what kinds of contracts, who's under $25,000 and who's over $25,000, who is sole-source, who i

Government Operations committee  That's the thing. We have now developed an outreach program. The reason you haven't heard about it is simply that we couldn't put it out until the regulations were there. We are going to use the services. Let me be quick. Members of Parliament, you are all going to get little boo

Government Operations committee  It's the Office of Small and Medium Enterprises. It's part of the acquisitions branch in Public Works.

Government Operations committee  I could get you a copy of the policy. The only reason I hesitate is that there were some revisions being made lately and I don't want to give you information that's out of date. The other thing we wanted to do, and it was very important, was that once we got the policy.... We re

Government Operations committee  I don't speak on behalf of the department, but I can speak a little on this from my own experience, and also because it's a very important tool relating to the fairness of the process. When I became the chief risk officer, I was aware that occasionally the department was using f

Government Operations committee  Madame, there are four issues that have been raised. Just on the first one, I was an auditor for 28 years. One of the first things you develop as an auditor, and then it gets better as time goes on, is a very thick skin. I don't take any of these things personally. Thank you; th

Government Operations committee  I'm quite used to that. I've appeared before these committees many times, so there's no problem. On the limitations, as I said, the limitations are in the Federal Accountability Act. There's not much we could do with it, but I'll tell you what we did do. If you go back to the fi

Government Operations committee  I have to clarify that the CITT also administers the AIT, so there is a domestic role. I will not speak for them. I'm sure they're coming later. But the important thing, sir, is that there are three parts to this mandate. On the part that deals with investigation of a complaint

Government Operations committee  These dollar limits were part of the Federal Accountability Act, and for me to start questioning them now is to question the will of Parliament. Parliament debated and approved that. My job is to implement the act. My job is not to question the basis of approval. So with due re