Government Operations committee  I'll make just a quick comment. It won't solve the problem, but it might have prevented the problem, because we would have known that there was a problem coming and we would have been in a position of needing to address it. It won't solve the problem right this minute.

Government Operations committee  In what respect do you mean?

Government Operations committee  I can make it very simple: No, I don't think there is any risk in sharing the basic information in a contract. That's the normal practice. It's already done—

Government Operations committee  The detailed information would be regarding how a firm, if they have a product exclusive to them, produced it. But the fact that they have the product.... If I'm buying a million of that product, I should be able to know how much the government is paying for that product. The bas

Government Operations committee  Thank you. If you're talking about something during a negotiation, which is pre-contracting, that's a different situation than when you have a contract with definite deliveries and definite everything in it. The danger we have is not whether we have the information. As Sean and

Government Operations committee  You used the words “if followed”. Yes, the laws and the rules as written are good. They're probably sufficient. This does respect the need in urgent situations such as pandemics, floods and fires to have to react quickly, and what to do and how to do different procurement practic

Government Operations committee  Sean mentioned the whole concept of openness by default. I would tend to state that the government, for many years, has been openness by exception, not by default. My premise would be that from a user's viewpoint, a public viewpoint, openness by exception...you can only close it

Government Operations committee  I'm not asking for anything new.

Government Operations committee  I would tell you, yes, it should be a normal thing. Given the urgency, it's totally understandable that the government made decisions as to whom they were going to give it to. There should have been a process to vet them quickly. My understanding is that some of them may not have

Government Operations committee  Yes, there can be bid rigging. You can't know if you don't know who's bidding. Believe me, the media love to investigate these things. There can be bid rigging, and you can pay more than you should. It's not hard to police. By the way, it's not always recognized, but the governm

Government Operations committee  I agree totally that mistakes will happen, and big contracts with higher prices are negotiated when you're in a rush. We all know that. However, with regard to mistakes as to what you're buying and who you're buying it from, there's no way of knowing what's happening except in an

Government Operations committee  Thank you. I obviously disagree somewhat with your premise. In terms of information being freely given, I have been dealing with access for many years now, and in the last two or three years, well before the pandemic, the system has ground almost to a halt. I agree that it is

Government Operations committee  There's no reason why that information shouldn't be made public quickly. As you know, I deal in procurement extensively, and I love to read contracts. I'm a person who likes the details, not just “Oh, we have a contract.” I can say “We have a contract” about anything, but unless

Government Operations committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. You've heard from Mr. Bron, and I'm going to be saying some of the same things. I'm going to say some of them a little differently and in a more general way. We all know we're in the middle of a pandemic and there's n