Evidence of meeting #86 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was macdonald.
A video is available from Parliament.
1 p.m.
Conservative
1 p.m.
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
Thank you, but that is not a yes-or-no question.
I made a technical direction in terms of where to go, that the—
1 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Again, Mr. Doan, I'm not interested in your explanation. Why is it impossible for you? It was easy for Mr. MacDonald to accuse you of deliberately lying. Is this something that your lawyer has instructed you not to opine or comment on?
I'm asking you specifically: Was Mr. MacDonald being truthful with respect to all the lies that he claims you made when you testified specifically that it was your decision to retain GC Strategies? It's a yes or a no. Are you incapable of answering a yes or a no?
1 p.m.
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
I'm under oath, so the words that come out of my mouth are going to be very, very specific because of that.
The question that was asked of me is who picked GC Strategies. I did not make the decision to go with GC Strategies; I picked a direction.
1 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
I'm going to stop you right there.
You did not make the decision to go with GC Strategies. Mr. MacDonald claims that you did. Is he telling the truth or is he lying?
1 p.m.
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
If his interpretation of that question is who picked the technical direction that led to it, then that is his interpretation.
1 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
He didn't use the words “technical direction”. I'm glad you brought up technical direction, because why was it impossible for you to phrase how you were involved with GC Strategies when you last testified before committee? You went through all these mental gymnastics to try to make us believe that it wasn't your decision alone, that it was your team, and you had 1,600 employees.
No one believes you, Mr. Doan. I wanted to give you a safe environment to finally come clean with the truth, and it appears that you are incapable of doing it. Someone has to accept responsibility for giving $9 million of taxpayer money to GC Strategies on the ArriveCAN app. That is a fact. That is reality. Mr. Firth from GC Strategies confirmed that.
I'm asking you: Are you accepting responsibility for that, or is Mr. MacDonald lying?
1:05 p.m.
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
As I said many times, I take full responsibility for the technical direction I took that led to GC Strategies—
1:05 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
I'll accept that as a yes, so he was telling the truth that the decision was yours, that it wasn't his.
He looked at six options before he presented Deloitte and CG Strategies. How incompetent can you be, sir, when you're unable to identify for a committee the names of those four other companies? Why is that?
1:05 p.m.
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
You will see in the evidence that this happened over 24 hours, so lots of things were—
1:05 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
One hour.... You're the chief technology officer. Why can't you identify the other four companies? We know Deloitte. We know that it's in the penalty box. We know it's GC Strategies. Who were the other four?
1:05 p.m.
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
I was not involved in that period of time, at that level. I trusted Mr. MacDonald to do the work and do the assessment over a 24- to 48-hour period of time. I was managing closing the order—
1:05 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Mr. Doan, I'll stop you right there.
Did it not raise red flags to you that he presented only two companies in all of Canada that were capable of doing a delivery on this ArriveCAN app? We know that Deloitte was out of the question. Mr. MacDonald knew that Deloitte was in the penalty box, didn't he? That was widely known at the CBSA.
1:05 p.m.
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
He did not present two companies; he presented an option, and the other one was an outsource. He did not, at any point in time—
1:05 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Sir, he claimed that Deloitte was his preferred choice. Was he telling the truth, or was he lying?
1:05 p.m.
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
I have no evidence of that. Actually, I have emails that recommend using our cloud, using eDeclaration, from Mr. MacDonald.
1:05 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
I'll ask the question. He claims that he presented two options to you, Deloitte and GC Strategies, and he said to you, as he testified at committee, that his preferred choice was Deloitte. You turned that down, because you probably confirmed that Deloitte was in the penalty box, and you directed him to go with GC Strategies.
Again, Mr. Doan, for the fifth, sixth, seventh time, who is lying? Are you misleading, or was Mr. MacDonald misleading when he said that decision, that direction, was not his but yours and yours alone?
1:05 p.m.
Conservative
1:05 p.m.
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
There's an evaluation matrix in here developed by the CBSA that supports my decision and does not recommend the Deloitte approach. That was—
1:05 p.m.
Conservative
1:05 p.m.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Doan, was there at any time any concern raised by your superior about ArriveCAN?
1:05 p.m.
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
I'm not clear on what the concerns are that you're alluding to.
1:05 p.m.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Was there any concern about the cost, about the timeline, about the responsiveness at any time, from any of your superiors....
1:05 p.m.
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
No, not at all. We were having different releases pretty much every 30 days responding to moving OICs and public health measures that were evolving every day: new variants, vaccine certificates, different types of workers. We were working around the clock, and we were delivering over and over and over, over a period of two and a half years.
1:05 p.m.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Thank you.
I recall that Mr. MacDonald indicated that you indicated that the superior or people above were “not happy” about ArriveCAN. Can you recall any conversation that you may have had with Mr. MacDonald around your superior not being happy about ArriveCAN?
