Evidence of meeting #50 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was security.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Is $8 million your full book of business with the Government of Canada?
4:45 p.m.
President, IBISKA
No. I just said we have business with DFAIT, we have business with SSC and we have business with National Defence. We have business with all of the different—
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
It seems odd to me that CBSA would say that they've paid you $8 million for ArriveCAN—
4:45 p.m.
President, IBISKA
No, sir. They did not pay me $8 million.
I don't think they would have said that, because we asked them, and they said.... What I saw in The Globe and Mail was $8 million, which is obviously incorrect. We asked CBSA where they got that, and they said, “No, we did not say that.” They said they have approximately $110,000.
That's what my understanding was, so I'm not sure exactly where that $8 million is coming from.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
I'm also not sure where the $8 million went.
4:45 p.m.
President, IBISKA
Sir, can I explain to you how it works with the government?
The government gives you a contract. The contract is here. You can see it. If you want a copy of the contract, we can give you the contract.
It says that the contract is this much. You have to authorize.... We have to receive a task authorization to do any work. The government is not obliged to use the maximum. There is a minimum the government is obliged to do when they give a contract to private industry. In this case, it was $20,000. If they never used this contract, the government was only obliged to pay $20,000.
The other thing is that if the government comes and says, “You guys get a contract right now worth $20 million. We want you to do this. We're going to pay you this and we want you to do this”, this is the overall contract over two years. The government can use it, but that doesn't mean the companies can actually invoice them.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
That's my time. I appreciate it.
I think we have a shared lack of understanding of where that $8 million went.
Thank you.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you, Mr. Barrett.
Next we'll go to Ms. Hepfner for six minutes.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
Thanks, Chair.
Through you, I would like to thank this witness for joining us today. We know that it's intimidating sometimes to appear before a parliamentary committee, but we really appreciate your participation and your words here today.
I'd like to start by asking about your company's history of doing IT security with the government. It goes back to 2006. Is that right?
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
Your company has been doing IT security work for the government since 1996.
4:45 p.m.
President, IBISKA
I'm sorry. No. Do you mean just the IT security business?
We've been doing the IT security business since around 2000. The government did what they call.... They chose a number of the only companies that were able to provide IT security services. The year 2006 was the first year they introduced which companies they wanted to select. They selected six companies, and we were one of the six companies they selected to do business with.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
What type of security clearance do your IT security employees have?
4:45 p.m.
President, IBISKA
Our IT security employees.... To give an example, I looked at the security clearances of all the people we have within the CBSA. We have so far provided 14 people to work there. Of them, eight them have top secret and six of them had secret.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
When your company works on sensitive projects, what sort of measures does it put in place to ensure the integrity and security of those projects?
4:45 p.m.
President, IBISKA
First of all, we obviously have to look at these individuals' security clearances.
With any contract we do with the federal government, we hold their security clearance. As a company, we hold the security clearance. The reason we hold the security clearance is that any time somebody's security clearance is terminated, they come to us and we have to terminate it. At that time, we know that the individual doesn't have security clearance.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
Did you personally use the ArriveCAN app when it was mandatory for Canadian travellers?
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
Were you confident in the security of your personal information?
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
I'm wondering if you can talk about the error rate with this app.
First of all, do you know of any security or privacy breaches that ever happened with ArriveCAN?
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
Okay. Do you know anything about the error rate of the app?
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
You don't know. Okay.
We've heard in question period a couple of times from the Conservative opposition that this type of application could be hacked in a weekend. I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that contention.