Government Operations Committee on Feb. 5th, 2024

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Okay, but it's confidential. You just said it's confidential.

You can't share it, but a witness can share it.

[Michel Lafleur]

If it's about them, they can share it.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Okay.

In the scope of your duties, are you concerned...? You mentioned that there's been some things, some systemic issues, with respect to contracts and documentation and these sorts of things.

Are you concerned within your investigation now—and you're uncovering things, you're finding things—that there's widespread corruption in your organization?

[Michel Lafleur]

I've seen no indication of widespread corruption.

We provided information to the president in the fall of 2023, after which she took a number of measures to strengthen procurement within the CBSA. I'm comfortable that those measures are serving their purpose.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

This incident specifically that you're seeing, is this the first of its kind that's sort of...? In a way, we've been extremely confused. It's been like a tangled web, and there's still a lot of clarity that needs to come forward here.

Is this an isolated incident in your time that you've seen?

[Michel Lafleur]

It is the first time that I see a file of this complexity and seriousness relating to procurement, yes.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

If you're looking at the Treasury Board guidelines for discipline, in which circumstances might the presence of public servants at work undermine or impede an investigation, as described in the Treasury Board's guidelines?

[Michel Lafleur]

I can speak to the Treasury Board standard on security screening, which outlines when an employee may need to be suspended. Speaking generally, it's when they would represent a potential security risk to the organization—to people, information or assets—or to the conduct of the investigation.

Again, speaking generally, if someone is under investigation in the workplace and still has access to witnesses, they may try to influence them. That would be a concern, so they may be removed from the workplace to protect the integrity of the investigation.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Seeing as how Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Utano were suspended, is this one of the risks that you saw or that CBSA is seeing, that they may have access to information and that's why they've been limited to that access and have been suspended?

[Michel Lafleur]

Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Utano are not employees of the CBSA. I can't speak to the decision to remove them from the workplace.

I can say that, generally speaking, it is normal in the course of an investigation for management to assess whether there is a need to mitigate potential risk pending the conclusion of the investigation. In the case where they have identified a potential risk, they have the responsibility to ensure that temporary measures are put in place to protect the organization and to protect the workplace until an investigation is completed and final decisions can be taken.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

We've received some feedback from some of the witnesses who appeared here before, and they've declared that there are some challenges with their health and they're unable to come back. Has this limited your investigation in any way?

[Michel Lafleur]

I can't speak to any discussions we may have had with potential witnesses. I will say that I have great sympathy for the stress that anyone involved in an investigation—whether it be a witness or someone who is under investigation—may face, particularly with the level of public scrutiny this file has had. I can appreciate how that is extremely stressful.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, gentlemen.

Mr. Genuis, please, you have five.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Lafleur, you're tasked with providing an investigation internally into what happened with ArriveCAN. I'm interested in what seems to be the difference in the level of interest you're applying to allegations against different individuals.

Your preliminary work, at least, seems to suggest a profound interest in allegations against Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Utano and a surprising lack of interest against Mr. Doan. I note that Mr. Doan faces serious allegations related to the deletion of documents and that no provisional action seems to have been taken against him, while Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Utano have been suspended without pay.

Could you provide the committee with any explanation as to your relatively much greater attention to allegations against Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Utano compared to allegations against Mr. Doan?

[Michel Lafleur]

I would disagree that there's been undue attention given to one over the other. We received allegations from Botler AI in November of 2022. It would be expected for that investigation to have proceeded much further than the new allegations that I received in December of 2023.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Okay. Your explanation is that you received the allegations against Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Utano earlier, yet Mr. Utano and Mr. MacDonald received a letter notifying them of the allegations against them on November 27 of this year.

That was again, suspiciously, 20 days after their damning testimony before this committee. How are we to understand the fact that allegedly your investigation had been going on for a year, yet they received a letter notifying them of the investigation in November of this year?

[Michel Lafleur]

If I can have a minute, perhaps, to explain that timeline, we did initiate an investigation in November 2022. Considering the potential criminality, when we have interactions with police, we do respect the integrity of their investigation and, in this case, we could not proceed with interviews or with notifying the individuals under investigation with respect to the RCMP investigation. Since we're talking about the same witnesses and the same evidence, we were limited in how we could proceed without negatively impacting the RCMP investigation.

That scenario changed when The Globe and Mail issued their report on October 4, 2023. Holding back on our investigation became a moot point at that point, which is why—

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

It was still after their testimony on November 7. Even what you just said doesn't make any sense from a timeline perspective. The Globe story you referenced was at the beginning of October, yet it was only after their testimony before this committee that they subsequently heard from you that they were under investigation.

This whole thing is just bizarre in terms of the investigation, because you said the investigation started a year ago, but somehow, it was only within a couple of weeks of their coming before this committee to give damning negative testimony about the government in response to the questions they were asked that they were told they were under investigation and were subsequently suspended without pay.

Meanwhile, we had these very serious allegations against Minh Doan, which involve hiding information and deleting emails, and as far as I know there has been no action taken against him. The clearest difference to me between Mr. Doan and Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Utano is that Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Utano gave very blunt, critical testimony, whereas Mr. Doan obfuscated, prevaricated, didn't answer questions and gave every indication of trying to defend the party line.

I get the same impression here: That you, who are subject to the leadership of CBSA, are looking at one set of allegations against one set of individuals and not against others.

Maybe the best way to go from that is to ask you, sir, about your own reporting chain of command. You have characterized your investigation as independent, but you're not independent. Are you? You're part of the department. You're subject to the authority of the department and you're movable—reassignable—at any time. Is that correct?

[Michel Lafleur]

Of course, I do not have the independence of the OAG or the procurement ombudsman, for example, but I do have the space and time to conduct my work independently within the agency.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Okay. You would like us to believe that you have space and time to act independently, but substantively, in terms of your role, you are not independent. There are no independent attributes about your role. You even told us that you were informally providing information to your superiors at CBSA on an ongoing basis.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Would you wrap up, please?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

You are not an independent investigator. You are their investigator, subject to the authority structure within CBSA.

Do you think that compromises the integrity of your investigation?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Would you provide a very brief answer, please?

[Michel Lafleur]

It is normal for departments to investigate matters that occur within their departments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Kusmierczyk, go ahead, please.