Government Operations committee  Thank you. Yes, I'd like to add a few details.

Government Operations committee  A lot of new safety measures have been put in place for language interpreters, as you know, in the room. Over the last three to four years, new measures have been put in place. The translation bureau is also looking at increasing capacity and taking a lot of steps to increase the capacity for interpretation.

Government Operations committee  Thank you. If I may, we've learned a lot from this report. I would say that the challenge function being played right now by our contracting officers is much, much greater. The OPO made that very clear, that there was a challenge function to play. On future sole source, we've learned from the OPO.

Government Operations committee  I'm happy to complement that. We have seen huge progress with respect to AI over the last few years. For translation, the DM did mention that it's a tool, and we believe in humans, that people can increase their productivity but need to be able to leverage those tools. At the end, there is always basically a professional translator and we want to make sure that this person is going to be reviewing the material before it's being sent to the client.

Government Operations committee  Thank you. From my standpoint, you need to look at whether there is positive, concrete evidence that would demonstrate that PSPC did favour McKinsey over another supplier. I know the ombud drew some negative inferences for the lack of information. I think when we drill down on PSPC contracts, we cannot accept the fact that there is evidence that shows that there was a preferential treatment that was afforded to McKinsey.

Government Operations committee  If you would allow me to jump in—

Government Operations committee  I'm going to also add that changing from task-based to solution-based is encouraged under the directive on procurement. We want to de-risk procurement. I cannot talk about the motivation in that case but, basically, we want suppliers to take on more risk and client departments to take on less, so in and of itself it's not necessarily a bad outcome.

Government Operations committee  Thank you. We're in the process of putting measures in place. I think employees want to show that they've done their jobs, and we have had very good co-operation so far. Our directors will follow up closely on quality assurance. In addition, they'll sit down with employees to remind them why we're doing this, which is always a good thing to do.

Government Operations committee  Thank you. DM Reza did touch on most of the elements, but also, one thing we did this week was to send.... First of all, we had a town hall with all our staff. We did make sure...because the last thing I want is for the procurement ombudsman to draw a negative inference from the lack of information on record.

Government Operations committee  The EPS is basically a cloud-based solution. The goal is to have all the key elements. When the bid is published, bidders are going to be able to bid using that platform. All the key documents, all the interaction with contracting authorities, are no longer done by email. In the past, for example, you used to send an email to the contracting authority, and this email maybe would get lost.

Government Operations committee  I don't have that information.

Government Operations committee  If I may add to that, over time there was a different way to store information on the record. It could have been by email. It could have been stored on some local drive. I have to say that it's not because something was not there. I do appreciate that we don't have the evidence to show that it was there.

Government Operations committee  Thank you. In hindsight, it's often so easy to see everything in black and white. I have to say, however, that this wasn't the case here. In fact, it involved data that was only available through McKinsey & Company. As Ms. Reza mentioned, agreements were reached with four other suppliers.

Government Operations committee  The ombud noted that point. We can improve our best practices in documentation. As the new assistant deputy minister responsible for government contracting, that is very important to me. A new position has therefore been created: chief, contract quality and records compliance. That individual will ensure that these steps are followed in all files.

Public Accounts committee  Our department sees the newspaper reports and the impact of the situation. However, we must also acknowledge that this isn't our main responsibility. That responsibility falls to Indigenous Services Canada, and we're in contact with the organization. I think that the organization is keen to resolve the situation and is quite seized with the issue.