Government Operations committee  Phoenix is a really interesting story during COVID, in that the work continued remotely, largely uninterrupted, some really good work. I will turn to my colleague Gini in a moment to get into details, but the queue has continued to drop. The backlog is now down to 301,000 in tota

Government Operations committee  I won't give exact numbers, but a couple of key points. As I mentioned earlier, we've secured additional warehouse space, just to give you a sense that it's bigger. There's more to come on that front, so certainly, a stockpile well in excess of what it was earlier. Besides—

Government Operations committee  The additional warehouse space I'm referring to is additional leased space that will be put in place. Some temporary space has been found, but we're also looking for some more permanent or semi-permanent space. We're not looking at purchasing, so it's leasing. The Public Health A

Government Operations committee  No, it's very different. As mentioned, the essential services contingency reserve announced by Minister Anand is a backstop to support essential services and industry. Those are things like energy, information, technology, finance, food, water, transportation, and manufacturing i

Government Operations committee  Absolutely. There is the private sector, industry associations, other levels of government, and this would be a backstop for a short-term supply in the event that they're unable to do so through those means.

Government Operations committee  I'm assuming this is grounded in when we're sole-sourcing. When there's a competition, obviously, there's a competition based on requirements, and the contract is awarded to the winning bid. When we were in sole source, we were looking at some key criteria: established supply cha

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, before we enter into a contract with a company of any sort, a check is done against its track record to ensure we are not entering into contracts with companies with values that may not comply with ours. That process still holds, regardless of whether we're sole-sourci

Government Operations committee  On that, I will probably turn to my colleague Ms. Reza to add some more detail. To return to your previous question, I don't want to leave you with the impression that none of the domestic manufacturers haven't had any challenges on quality as they stand up their new production

Government Operations committee  On the N95 front—I would again refer members to the updated web chart that came out earlier—we are actually at a number now of 50.6 million that have come through and are acceptable and are in Canada. There's ongoing testing, which I want to stress, because of the importance of t

Government Operations committee  In the numbers we produced this morning, we've now taken out all the rejects that didn't pass the quality standards. They are no longer in those numbers. The ones you're seeing on the web chart now are the ones that are acceptable.

Government Operations committee  When I'm talking about experts, I'm talking about PSPC. We do have procurement experts. Not to say we don't get help from outside, but I was referring to our own team.

Government Operations committee  Thank you for your question, Mrs. Vignola. The risk is still high in some commodities. The N95 mask is one we're continuing to worry about, but it is a commodity-by-commodity risk. The risk is lower where we're getting domestic supply. That's the short answer to your question. W

Government Operations committee  I cannot speak to that exact case, but I can tell members about the measures we've taken to ensure security of the supply line, from a federal perspective. I suspect the case in question may be of a provincial order, but I'm not certain. The number one key to bringing goods from

Government Operations committee  With regard to the quality of goods, because it's medical equipment and personal protective equipment, making sure they meet standard is always paramount. It's something that we have been worried about from day one with our colleagues at the Public Health Agency, who are responsi

Government Operations committee  Yes, certainly. I will start, and thank you for the question. There are two ways to look at the domestic contracting. Number one is by number of contracts, and number two is by dollar value. By dollar value, domestically manufactured products are above 40%. Part of that story is