Public Accounts committee  Coming up with an answer to that question is one of the goals of our action plan. Most of the 8,500 projects I spoke about deal with things like home roofing. We are looking to find an answer to that question.

Public Accounts committee  That is correct, sir.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chairman, if I may respond to that and help put the question and the observation about the 8,500 contracts between 2002 and 2007 into context, National Defence has more than 20,000 buildings, more than 13,000 works, and more than 5,000 kilometres of roads, so the construction and upkeep of those are what generates the volume of contracting.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you very much for the invitation to brief you today on the Department of National Defence's response to the Auditor General's October 2007 audit of security and contracting. As you know, my name is Scott Stevenson and I'm the acting assistant deputy minister for infrastructure and environment.