Evidence of meeting #105 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 cbsa.
A video is available from Parliament.
1:05 p.m.
Liberal
Jenica Atwin Liberal Fredericton, NB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Just right off the top, for Mr. Utano and Mr. MacDonald, are you able to table the communications between you and your lawyers and CBSA regarding the claim you made that you would meet with investigators?
1:05 p.m.
Director General, Information Technology Branch, Canada Revenue Agency, As an Individual
Barring any disruption with respect to solicitor-client privilege, we can take that back and take a look at it, for sure.
1:05 p.m.
Liberal
Jenica Atwin Liberal Fredericton, NB
Okay.
I have an article here. It's from The Globe and Mail.
Our media friends have been following this very closely. This is from an October 4 article entitled “RCMP probes alleged misconduct in outsourced CBSA contract”, and this is the quote from it:
Those recorded conversations show Mr. MacDonald directed Botler in February, 2020, to “please work with Kristian” and “let Kristian work his magic.” The conversations also reveal that Mr. Firth described Mr. MacDonald in November, 2019, as a friend and said, “I've been with him his whole career in the government.”
Mr. Firth referred to various senior public servants as friends.
Mr. Firth also urged the two Botler entrepreneurs to single out Mr. MacDonald for praise when meeting with other senior government officials.
Mr. MacDonald, do you have a response to that? How did you feel reading that in the media and how would you characterize that? Is it truthful?
1:05 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Health Canada, COVID and Pandemic Response Secretariat, As an Individual
I would characterize it not as truthful at all and as cherry-picked information from Botler, who were apparently recording everything that everybody does and then decided to put in misconduct reports two years after their failed business dealings.
Number one, I don't think the member was here when I first testified, but I did explain and I went through a whole critical path of timelines. I held up a big piece of paper and I explained that when Botler says that I tried to pressure them, there was no chance that that could be the case because, one, I wasn't the client, and two, the decision to go ahead with Botler didn't happen for almost another year after that.
Number two, in terms of Mr. Firth knowing me for my entire career, it's false. He clarified that he knew me his entire career. I've already explained the timelines and dates of when I knew Mr. Firth, and we didn't have a close personal relationship whatsoever. I met him three times out of an office, and half of that was during a pandemic when you couldn't go into an office in the first place.
In terms of singling me out—because I'm trying to answer your question very directly—I don't know why Mr. Firth would do that. I certainly didn't ask him to do that. I wasn't part of that conversation and I wasn't videotaped or recorded or whatever it is that Botler does as part of that, and I won't speculate, but I never asked Mr. Firth to do anything. It's unfortunate. I didn't like it at all and I think the reporter's aware that I didn't appreciate the report, but it happened and I'm dealing with it as best I can.
1:10 p.m.
Liberal
Jenica Atwin Liberal Fredericton, NB
Thank you for that.
I started with that because that was what initiated so much in these past few months in our committee testimony and hearings.
Was there misconduct in the procurement process, as far as you know, under you, at CBSA during the time for the ArriveCAN development?
1:10 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Health Canada, COVID and Pandemic Response Secretariat, As an Individual
If we start with the Botler allegations, I believe PSPC reviewed those. I believe they did a legal assessment and told Botler that this was a private sector matter. I believe CBSA, through Botler's own testimony, told Botler the same thing. I hope that clears up that point.
With respect to the Auditor General and the procurement ombud's report, with respect to my time and tenure at the CBSA, I don't think I was named as having done anything wrong. I don't think any public servants were named as doing anything wrong by the procurement ombud. I don't know of any wrongdoing. I certainly did not witness any and I wouldn't have stood for it had I seen it.
Frankly, maybe I'll pass it to Mr. Utano for the other two years that ArriveCAN was there. From what I understand and the reviews that were done, there were some questions between contract 1 and contract 2. I've clearly stated that we were responsible for contract 1. The justification for contract 2 was written by the business and was signed off by the CFO. It was sent over to PSPC and they signed off on it, and they indicated that they already had a contractor in mind for that work.
For contract 3, it would make no sense to go with a different vendor—as I explained, it doesn't make sense to hire a different plumber to do more work in your bathroom than you originally engaged for—but PSPC did insist on a new contract.
I'll leave it at that. That was the only thing I was there for.
Mr. Utano, go ahead, please.
1:10 p.m.
Director General, Information Technology Branch, Canada Revenue Agency, As an Individual
Thanks.
I did not witness any sort of misconduct.
I want to make a comment on the Botler issue.
As I said in my opening statement, what's concerning to me is the request for contract services in exchange for a misconduct report and the request for a contract in exchange for participating in an investigation. For me, that's what raises a lot of red flags.
As far as authorities go, I'll say again that we were not the contracting authority; we were responsible for the technical delivery and technical authorities. We also put in place systems and checks and balances.
I want to reiterate something, because I heard a comment about a shadow procurement. Let me be very clear: There was no such thing. There was no shadow procurement. It was impossible to even trade that. You need six people to turn the key at the same time for any sort of contract to be let. We had an internal team that was taking in requests and we had CBSA procurement and PSPC was the overall government authority. We also had.... I don't have evidence for you, but if you.... This was omitted, and this is what's concerning to me—the omissions of data and papers. That is what I'm questioning. You'll see that there were monthly and weekly meetings for procurement—
1:10 p.m.
Conservative
1:10 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Health Canada, COVID and Pandemic Response Secretariat, As an Individual
Mr. Chair, please, if the member would permit, there is a distinction that needs to be made between a technical authority and a contracting authority. When we testified the last time, because you brought up the media, I brought this up.
The Botler allegations kept calling us the contracting authorities. We did not have that authority. We could not sign for contracts and we could not implement things that added cost to the government. We could, however, sign for scope. There's a very big difference, and I think that shows the naïveté of the people who made the allegations in the first place and it was what caused the snowball to roll.
Thank you.
1:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Thank you very much.
Colleagues, as you are aware, we've been letting everyone run a bit long, and that's partly because we have a long meeting today and I sense that there are a lot of important questions.
We're down to our final two rounds, so I have to keep everyone down to their exact time in order to be done on time. I want everyone to please be aware of that.
Mr. Genuis is talking about how that will be after him, but no—please be cognizant of your time, because we need to stick to it.
Mr. Genuis, go ahead, please.
1:10 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
We've had multiple witnesses who have been reluctant to appear and who have cited health issues. This has been a serious and repeated problem for us as we have tried to get to the bottom of this scandal.
Mr. MacDonald, you referenced in passing someone having a fake heart attack, which is quite a serious allegation.
Would you be willing to flesh that out a little bit? Who did that, when, and for what purpose?
1:15 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Health Canada, COVID and Pandemic Response Secretariat, As an Individual
The reason I say that is that after Minh Doan threatened me, I reported his threat to my supervisor, who called over to Ted Gallivan, the executive vice-president at the CBSA. I don't know what their discussion entailed; I only know that the feedback that I heard was that it seemed likely, because of behaviours of Minh Doan, that Minh Doan would be going on sick leave within a week and a half. This was prior to OGGO happening.
Mr. Doan went on sick leave, and I got a text message from Kelly Belanger saying that Minh was in the hospital having his heart checked and that he wanted to say thank you for the message I sent, the one that got me in so much trouble with the reporter because I had sent him notes on what he should say at OGGO.
Then, miraculously, he comes back to work, moves over to Treasury Board and gets promoted to be chief technology officer. That certainly couldn't be a less stressful job than what he was in before for someone who had heart problems.
Then we have OGGO coming up again, and I'm under the understanding that Mr. Doan is now on medical leave again and can't participate.
I can tell you that I'm not going to disclose my medical issues, but I have a doctor's note for seven months from my family doctor, who's known me since I was eight months old, and I'm still coming here because it's a matter of integrity and it's a matter of importance for me, my children, my wife and my family to know that I'll stick up for myself and that I'll tell the truth.
1:15 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Thank you.
We'll persist in challenging all aspects of your testimony, but we do appreciate that you are here when others have chosen not to come and we've had to go to great lengths to get them to come.
You allege that Botler received a contract in exchange for making certain allegations. Is that correct?
1:15 p.m.
Director General, Information Technology Branch, Canada Revenue Agency, As an Individual
Just for clarity, we didn't say that; CBSA said that.
1:15 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Okay.
You've talked in the context of this situation about Ms. O'Gorman, Mr. Ossowski and Mr. Doan, but you've also referenced “leadership” in a somewhat oblique way. Is the implication that there were higher-ups involved in these conversations with Botler, people at the political level or people at PCO? Is it beyond those three people?
1:15 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Health Canada, COVID and Pandemic Response Secretariat, As an Individual
Yes—well, I mean, our life has been pretty much turned upside down, and we've been trying to figure things out. There aren't a lot of people who are giving us information, but through our discovery, we can tell you that Botler was very close with Minister Miller. They even knew his chief of staff by name and waved to her in an interview. We know that they sat at the top of Department of Justice Canada and that they were given a seat at the table with the top of the Department of Justice Canada. We know that Amir Morv was in videos with Justin Trudeau and we know that he was part of a speaking engagement on AI where Justin Trudeau was kind of the guest speaker.
From my vantage point, I don't know who my MP's chief of staff is by name, but yes, when they say “leadership”, it means either the Clerk of the Privy Council or politicians, in my view.
1:15 p.m.
Director General, Information Technology Branch, Canada Revenue Agency, As an Individual
Can I add one more thing?
1:15 p.m.
Director General, Information Technology Branch, Canada Revenue Agency, As an Individual
I also want to highlight that through an ATIP, we found an email directly from Ritika Dutt to the president, John Ossowski, in March of—
February 22nd, 2024 / 1:15 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Health Canada, COVID and Pandemic Response Secretariat, As an Individual
It was March 8, after we started the feasibility study.
1:15 p.m.
Director General, Information Technology Branch, Canada Revenue Agency, As an Individual
—2020. Unbeknownst to us, there were some other dealings going on in partnering with some other project, although we don't have the details. Mr. MacDonald and I were unaware of this, but through ATIPs we discovered that there were direct conversations right to the top about working on other initiatives.
1:15 p.m.
Conservative
1:15 p.m.
Director General, Information Technology Branch, Canada Revenue Agency, As an Individual
I can confirm—
1:15 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Health Canada, COVID and Pandemic Response Secretariat, As an Individual
It basically says that the Minister of Justice had already approved a scope for work that had nothing to do with the feasibility study, so—
1:15 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
I just note, of course, that we heard recently that if the Information Commissioner has concerns about information being not provided in a criminal way, she refers that to the Attorney General, who is the same person, the justice minister who apparently has these relationships.
Are you concerned, regarding the Prime Minister, that we have an internal investigation subject to the existing chain of command when the Prime Minister sits effectively at the top of that chain of command? Are you concerned about the risk of political involvement?