Public Accounts Committee — Department of Education, that is the one that we have to purchase for school kids. MS THISTLE: Can you cite a particular type of emergencies where you would have to purchase goods within a twenty-four hour notice? MS WAKEHAM: One would be firefighting, if we did not have sufficient foam we would pay to deal with a particular problem, and another would be difficulty with a flood, if a pipe burst and we had to get a culvert in and deal with the issue in a very short period of time. Mostly they are things that happen of a natural disaster type where you have to have an immediate response. If the goods and stuff are not there then you have to purchase them immediately to deal with it. We would have lights going out on a runway that have to be replaced immediately, and those kinds of things. MS THISTLE: I would also like to ask you this. When you look at figure 3 on page 4, there were several examples of tender exceptions that were not reported to the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation within five days of awarding the contract. MS WAKEHAM: Yes. MS THISTLE: In fact, there was one incident when an item was not reported for two years. What kind of circumstances would cause this, and what can you do to avoid this in the future? MS WAKEHAM: I think you are referring to the $7.2 million that was for the purchase of the water bombers - MS THISTLE: That is correct. MS WAKEHAM: - which was before my time. I understand the reason that the report was not done was basically because they did not realize they had to do a report, and that was an oversight on the part of the department at that time. When they were notified that that was an exception they had to file for, then the filing was done. MS THISTLE: Are there any safeguards in place now that would prevent that type of incident from happening again? MS WAKEHAM: What we do on a regular basis is we provide seminars to the MASH group which is the municipalities, the school boards and the hosp