Government Operations committee  Perhaps it wasn't directly in response to it; however, she is very involved in the GAC transformation and a lot of the initiatives that are implemented in the GAC—

Government Operations committee  Just to clarify, what I was saying is that she's very involved in our overall Global Affairs transformation. When I think of some of the initiatives that are in our Global Affairs transformation—

Government Operations committee  I would have to ask her staff if they've briefed her on the outcome of this audit. The practice would be for us to brief her employees on this type of information.

Government Operations committee  Something I can point to is the category that we call “services”. Back in 2017-18, we had $403 million in services, and if we think about the last fiscal year, it was $259 million. As I mentioned earlier, procurement across all of our different lines has decreased over the last five years.

Government Operations committee  I would say yes. Given the recent refocusing in government spending, the budget of the department for professional services was reduced by 15%. The department is committed to reducing our spending in that area, so I expect there will be a decrease in expenditures in the next fiscal year.

Government Operations committee  Certainly.

Government Operations committee  None that I'm aware of.

Government Operations committee  I'm going to ask my colleague Dan Pilon to provide some specific details there.

Government Operations committee  As I've mentioned, the department has been very seized with the results of this audit and has been working towards implementing a number of activities in order to mitigate—

Government Operations committee  Yes, this type of activity is permitted.

Government Operations committee  I don't know if I would say it's common. It's not uncommon. We would have to do a sample of the numbers, but it's something that happens—

Government Operations committee  We do have several mentorship programs within the department. We have a school within the department that provides a lot of training services to our employees. One of—

Government Operations committee  I think the hiring of professional services for things like coaching is done across all government departments. Of course, it's—

Government Operations committee  Certainly.

Government Operations committee  First I'll clarify that the 8,000 contracts were for one particular type of contracting service. Dan can certainly provide you with some details on all of the different classes you inquired about.