Public Accounts committee  Yes. It can be evidence of their identifying who they need and advising Mr. Brazeau in advance who they want. Then Mr. Brazeau has to set up a procurement process in which he's going out to the public to get bids, and he knows exactly who they want, the nature of the procurement

Public Accounts committee  We were unable to confirm that directly with Mr. Brazeau, but we made that assumption based on the handwriting that we saw on the file and compared that to Mr. Brazeau's handwriting.

Public Accounts committee  I'm not clear on your question, in terms of amending. You could certainly look at some of the RFPs that went out and make an argument that some of the RFPs were set up such that they favoured incumbent resources at the RCMP.

Public Accounts committee  I believe it would have been the contract processing unit, in consultation with Mr. Brazeau. This was, really, a requirement that had nothing to do with the needs of the client. In this case it was a mistake that was in the document. So that was the reason for the amendment.

Public Accounts committee  I can't speak to the logic as to why they put in a “no bidder” in each instance. There may have been a business reason at the time. But I'd ask why you would continue to send, with regard to this one client, requests to this company that continually provided no bid letters? Why n

Public Accounts committee  No, not on that contract.

Public Accounts committee  He had been working on a previous contract.

Public Accounts committee  No, he had not.

Public Accounts committee  My understanding of the history was that there were contracts that were initially done through RCMP procurement. They were not happy with the process as it was flowing. As the supply arrangements ran out, they did some bridging contracts. Then they were no longer willing to provi

Public Accounts committee  That's the way it transpired, yes.

Public Accounts committee  Yes.

Public Accounts committee  In this process, Mr. Smith would have received an RFP from Consulting and Audit Canada. He would have proposed Mr. Onischuk, written a proposal, and then provided the administrative function of submitting invoices and paying Mr. Onischuk. So he allowed Mr. Onischuk to go under Ab

Public Accounts committee  Other than the administering of the contract and the handling of the invoices and payments, that was the process then employed.

Public Accounts committee  I believe it was, as Mr. Smith said, between 5% and 10% of the contract value.

Public Accounts committee  With this one contract itself?