Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, in terms of procurement strategy and what was purchased in PPE, especially during the early days of the pandemic and so on, I would defer to our colleagues at PSPC in terms of what the rationale was there. In terms of the social procurement, obviously a lot of work is

Government Operations committee  Yes, some of the delegations have been continued on now until the end of December. My clarifying question would be.... If it's in relation to some of the extra expenditures authorities, I might turn to Mr. Purves. I'm not sure how your question is being asked. If it's in relatio

Government Operations committee  Thank you very much. That's what I was looking for in terms of the clarification in relation to procurement. Yes, there were some procurement flexibilities given in the early days of the pandemic—

Government Operations committee  With regard to why we extended it, it's more limited at this point in terms of the departments that have access to it. The rationale is that the pandemic is still evolving. In order to be flexible and available to meet whatever demands come out in the next little bit, it was exte

Government Operations committee  In terms of this contract, I'm actually not specifically aware of what process it went through. The decision of whether or not a sole-source contract would be made is made by the specific department.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, maybe to respond to Mr. Green's question, in the public accounts at the end of the year—I don't have the specific listing here—there is a summary of all of the claims that have been paid. Again, whenever there would be funding that would go out, there would have to be

Government Operations committee  The Treasury Board would be aware of the fact that there would be a legal suit going on. Working with the Department of Justice—again, I'm not speaking to any specific suit—there would then be discussions around setting up contingent liabilities as per public sector accounting st

Government Operations committee  I'm not familiar enough with that specific contract. The specifics of the actual execution of contracts will always go through PSPC. PSPC would probably be best placed to provide you further details.

Government Operations committee  Absolutely. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have had conversations, both with the CFOs as well as deputy heads in terms of the fact that we would need to have additional flexibility. As a result of that, some of the funds and some of the c

Government Operations committee  With regard to the specifics of each contract, or the specifics of each arrangement, I would have to direct you to the specific department and/or PSPC. They would look at what was written into the terms and conditions, and what the appropriate mechanisms were for any follow-up re

Government Operations committee  Again, the specifics around individual contracts fall under the negotiations with PSPC. In terms of how it would have executed those contracts, as has been noted, it would have followed the procurement policies and whatnot. Acknowledging the fact, of course, that during the pande

Government Operations committee  Depending on the specifics of the contract, there would be times when it would have been delegated by the minister. There are other times when the minister would have potentially come in. Again, it depends on the specifics around which specific contracts. I'm not as familiar wit

Government Operations committee  Our approach throughout the pandemic has been to work with departments, with their CFOs and also with deputy heads of communications, acknowledging that with the challenges of the pandemic, money would be going out and we would, at times, have to be more flexible. As a result, we

Government Operations committee  In terms of the role the Treasury Board Secretariat plays, for different levels of information, there are different levels of review. I would like to note that at the end of the year, we work very closely with our colleagues at the Office of the Auditor General to make sure that

Government Operations committee  The inclusion of the taxation is not my area of speciality, in terms of my knowing that. We can definitely get back to you on that.