Government Operations Committee on March 14th, 2024

[Darren Anthony]

No.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Would you ever notify him of any discrepancies or any wrongdoing?

[Darren Anthony]

Absolutely.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Have you had to in the past?

[Darren Anthony]

Never.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Would he ever ask you to overlook anything?

[Darren Anthony]

No.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

I'm now going to refer to the Auditor General's report. That's the one that you and Mr. Firth are disputing, but you have admitted that you haven't read it yet. I'm turning to page 18.

In her report, the Auditor General identifies some issues with security clearance and some task authorizations for GC Strategies. I'll just quote it for you:

The Canada Border Services Agency issued 2 task authorizations for cybersecurity assessments of the application under 2 of the GC Strategies contracts valued at approximately $743,000. The task authorizations required that resources have a reliability security status.

What the Auditor General found was the following:

[T]hat security assessments were completed for ArriveCAN in a pre-development environment by subcontractors under GC Strategies.... However, [they] found that some resources that were involved in the security assessments were not identified in the task authorizations and did not [receive] security clearance....

In addition, the agency received invoices for resources listed on the task authorizations. However, it was unable to provide any supporting documentation to confirm that work related to the security assessments was performed by 4 of the 5 resources listed.

Wouldn't that be part of your job?

[Darren Anthony]

All of the resources that we provided under those contracts had security clearances.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

So you're once again disputing the Auditor General's report with regard to what she found.

[Darren Anthony]

What I can tell you is that all of GC Strategies' resources who worked on the contract had a security clearance.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Again, the Auditor General found that the agency “was unable to provide any supporting documentation to confirm that work related to the security assessments was performed by 4 of the 5 resources listed.” That's a pretty high percentage lacking documentation to confirm that security assessments were conducted.

I would suggest, sir, that you read the Auditor General's report before you actually dispute what's in it. Perhaps, again, as a director or a fifty-fifty partner in this company, you would seek to understand some of the allegations that are being levelled against your company.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks, Mrs. Block.

I'm sorry. We're out of time for a response, sir, but I'm sure we'll get back to it in another intervention.

Ms. Sidhu, you're next, please. Welcome to OGGO.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will pass my time to Mr. Jowhari.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Madam Sidhu.

Mr. Anthony, let's talk about the number of RFPs.

You told us that the business that you bring to GC Strategies is split, with 60% being private and 40% being government. You highlighted that national defence, agriculture and transportation are three areas that you hold as part of your account portfolio within the government. Since 2015, when you formed GC Strategies, how many RFPs in general in those departments have you responded to, and what was GC Strategies' success rate?

[Darren Anthony]

We ran some numbers yesterday, and I believe that we submitted over 200 RFPs. I believe our win rate was around 15% to 20%.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

That's good. It looks like you were watching the testimony. That's good, because you indicated earlier that you had watched part of that testimony. It looks like you were watching that part of the testimony, which is good.

With regard to the 15% to 20% win rate, what's your win rate on the private side?

[Darren Anthony]

I don't have those numbers in front of me. I would assume that it's probably a little bit higher, at 20% to 25%.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Okay.

Can you tell us how much effort goes into preparing an RFP? For 100 RFPs.... You did over 200 RFPs at a 15% win rate. That's about 30, which by my math doesn't add up, since you had 60 to 65 contracts with the government, so there's some way that the math doesn't add up. I will leave that for another round.

On your percentage of.... You talked about the other 20%.

Let's go back to 2005. In your earlier response to one of the questions, you said that you saw a trend as early as 2005. Can you tell me exactly what you saw that trend to be? What was the driver that you saw in 2015 that made you say, “Oh, my God; this is a perfect time to start this company”?

[Darren Anthony]

In 2005, I started as a recruiter. I started in the business at that time. I didn't realize the trend immediately, but I knew that I enjoyed doing the work and it was a good way to make money.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

When you say that it was a good way to make money, naturally you saw the margins that your firm at the time, where you were an employee, was making. I'm sure that you were privy to that. Is that correct?

[Darren Anthony]

I was not privy to the margins of those companies.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Then how do you know it's a good way to make money?

[Darren Anthony]

I was speaking personally for myself, based on salary.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Oh. What you meant was that by transitioning and becoming a company owner, you would make more money than this salary. However, at no time, based on what you're claiming, did you have a preview into the margins that those subcontractors were making.