Public Accounts Committee on April 9th, 2024

[Mike Abbott]

Yes.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

In your work on or awareness of that, were there ever any concerns expressed by CBSA about Deloitte's work on the CARM initiative?

[Mike Abbott]

I will, for the purpose of ArriveCAN, put it out and say that some of those questions will be best directed towards Deloitte because I'm representing BDO. However, I'll answer from the perspective that there were certainly, like with other large projects, points of contention, things that worked well and that didn't work well. I do not describe it as having points of contention, but certainly, where things weren't working there were meetings of the minds, if you will, to try to clear those up and move forward.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Would you say that there were challenges or concerns expressed by CBSA about the CARM initiative?

[Mike Abbott]

I would say that, similar to any other project where it's large-scale in nature, not everything goes exactly...from the day one plan. I characterize it that way as opposed to saying that there were concerns. I can speak to it from that perspective.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

CARM will be launching on May 13. Are you confident that it'll launch successfully?

[Mike Abbott]

I haven't been part of that project for three years, so I really don't have a perspective to answer on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you, Mr. Nater. That is your time.

Ms. Yip, you have the floor for five minutes, please.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you for coming.

Mr. Abbott, you mentioned in your opening statement that 15% of the business through Lixar had worked with GC Strategies. Can you elaborate on what that was, exactly? Do you believe that was good value for money?

[Mike Abbott]

Our team was asked to pull together a team around data scientists and some application developers, specifically to help work through different pictures, and for optical reading purposes, to read text. It started with a proof of concept, and then once that was cleared it moved to a bigger piece.

I would describe it as a fairly technical skill set and capability that, I think, there are generally two reasons that organizations get asked to supply: One is for staff augmentation and the other is to achieve an outcome to acquire a skill. In this case, it was for acquiring the skill set, specifically from the data scientist, and because we did not hold the appropriate contracts and resource categories we could not do that through our own means. However, that was the nature of that work, and it ran from April 2021 throughout 2021.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Do you feel that was good value for money?

[Mike Abbott]

The Auditor General's report and its commentary around value for money didn't highlight anything specific around the work that we did. It's a very unique skill set that was brought to the table. I certainly do not challenge the Auditor General's report. It's a very well-written report.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Can you confirm the total amount that you received for working on the ArriveCAN application?

[Mike Abbott]

Yes, I confirm the number that the Auditor General had. We went back to look at our records and reconcile back to the Auditor General's number, and it matched the number. It included 85% of that number—85% of $2.9 million is $2.4 million—which was direct from BDO through to CBSA, and the remaining $500,000 was through GC Strategies, so $2.9 million.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thanks.

Have any of you met with Kristian Firth, Darren Anthony or Dalian's—and People's Party of Canada candidate—David Yeo?

[Mike Abbott]

No.

[Nicole Foster]

No.

[Nick Markou]

No.

[John Weigelt]

No.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Who initiated contact between BDO and GC Strategies?

[Mike Abbott]

The contact would have come through our existing relationship, which was through Lixar. It would have been GC Strategies through to our Lixar team and then from there.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Do you work on any other projects with GC Strategies?

[Mike Abbott]

Yes, we have.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Have you worked with the Coradix, Dalian or Coredal companies in the past?

[Mike Abbott]

We have worked with Dalian, but not the other two organizations you mentioned.