Government Operations committee  Thanks for the question, Mr. Chair. For the 5% target of the government, we take, by value, the total value of contracts and subcontracts that are awarded to companies listed on the indigenous business directory. The indigenous business directory is run by Indigenous Services Canada, and in order to be qualified for that, they have to be 51% owned by an indigenous entity.

Government Operations committee  One part I would add is that at a functional level, they built applications, but they also made adjustments to existing systems within CBSA so that the application would integrate with their own main systems and allow them to aggregate data. Part of what they were also doing was looking at how they work with and support public health data and other sources of data, and bringing those together.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, during the pandemic—

Government Operations committee  That's correct, Mr. Chair, in that we are working with Global Affairs to determine what's the proper approach in understanding which markets are open to our SMEs, and which ones aren't, and making sure that there is fairness in the opportunities that are afforded to Canadian SMEs versus what are afforded to SMEs in other countries.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, I would say it's very parallel, in the sense that these IT projects generally are to build a system or a tool and then leave it behind. It would be very similar to engaging an architect and an engineering firm to design a building and then engaging a prime contractor to actually build that building.

Government Operations committee  That would be a relatively small project for us. We have multi-billion-dollar contracts, so this would be a very small task authorization.

Government Operations committee  We'll provide what we have.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, to my knowledge, I was not asked to provide any briefing on ArriveCAN to Minister Jaczek. Whether someone else in the department did, such as the deputy minister, I would not be aware.

Government Operations committee  I'm sorry. I just don't recall. I'd have to go back and look at my records.

Government Operations committee  Yes.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, it is.... Part of our mandate is to—

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, as was provided to this committee before, there were 46 different contracts used to produce the work related to ArriveCAN—

Government Operations committee  —but it's not a single contract for $54 million to build the app. It's—

Government Operations committee  At the beginning of the endeavour to build the ArriveCAN app, we were not aware that there would be 46 contracts leveraged to undertake all the work necessary—internally to adjust systems, and to design and deploy the app on many platforms. That analysis was not done at the beginning, because we were not aware and—

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, I cannot speak for everyone in our department in terms of who was analyzing the overall value for money.