Public Accounts committee  Each situation and investigation that we work on is unique, but I fully stand behind the process we employed to do our work. Consulting and Audit Canada looked at these contracts initially; they had issues with them. We looked at these contracts; we had issues with them, as you s

Public Accounts committee  Yes.

Public Accounts committee  Their consultant was already working for the RCMP. CAC had no knowledge of what they were doing, and the contract was not in place at the time they were working.

Public Accounts committee  The consultant had worked previously at the RCMP. This work was being done without a contract. So they approached CAC to put a contract in place to pay for the work that the consultant had already done.

Public Accounts committee  You're dealing with putting a contract in place for work that's already done. There are issues with process and risk. Does CAC know anything about the work that was done? Is this a proper contracting process to pay a consultant who didn't go through any kind of competitive proces

Public Accounts committee  I believe so, yes.

Public Accounts committee  Yes. My understanding was that Ms. van Schaik had some consultants working at the RCMP at the time. She was approached about the possibility of CAC doing contracting for the NCPC. Could something be done about this consultant who had been working without a contract that they had

Public Accounts committee  We were dealing with CAC as a client—Mr. Jackson—from the time we were engaged in October until about early April, when we first met with Mr. Marshall. So we were providing regular updates.

Public Accounts committee  Late in October 2004, we were engaged. We were providing regular updates to Consulting and Audit Canada from the period of October through to the end of March. We met with Mr. Marshall in early April to provide a brief.

Public Accounts committee  When you look at the technical scoring that was awarded to the Abotech resource for their criteria that were issued in the RFP, he received scores that exceeded or were in the same range as the other proposed resources from other companies, and did not have nearly the experience

Public Accounts committee  I can't speak to the person's intentions, Mr. Christopherson. I'm just speaking to what I saw.

Public Accounts committee  Correct.

Public Accounts committee  Somebody is fixing the evaluation.

Public Accounts committee  Absolutely.

Public Accounts committee  That is, with regard to the scoring, yes.