Government Operations Committee on Feb. 22nd, 2024

[Cameron MacDonald]

Actually, that's not correct.

I'm on sick leave. The first time they emailed me, they emailed my work address. The second time, they emailed my home address and we responded. We've responded, I think, four times in total saying that we would participate in the investigation.

We have asked a number of times for them to disclose information so that we can prepare for the investigation and prepare for the interview. We're happy to do that; we just want to have information so we can prepare to come in and defend ourselves.

[Antonio Utano]

Can I please add to that, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

It's Mr. Bachrach's time, so it's up to Mr. Bachrach.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I'm sorry. It just seems a bit like a misrepresentation that you said you weren't interviewed, but you were clearly invited to be interviewed as part of the process, and you demanded to have certain documents, which they didn't provide, and as a result you didn't participate in the investigation. It seems like the opportunity was open to you.

I'm going to move on to a different claim.

Mr. MacDonald, you claimed that you didn't sign contracts for ArriveCAN.

Mr. Utano, I didn't hear you make the same claim.

Did you sign contracts for any ArriveCAN vendors?

[Antonio Utano]

I just want to confirm that we were never the contracting authorities on any of those contracts. We were the technical authorities.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

In the Auditor General's report, she clearly highlights the fact that you were responsible for choosing GC Strategies as the vendor for the contract. Is that accurate?

[Antonio Utano]

It's not accurate.

First, we never had the authority to make the decision. We presented options. If we had had the authority to make the decision, why would we have presented options in the first place?

Second, we presented evidence to this committee and to the Auditor General on who made the decision.

Third, what she was referring to, I believe, was a requisition. A requisition is step one of six in contracting, but that starts only after a decision is rendered.

I'm going to repeat this. Once the decision was made by the VP, Minh Doan, and the president to move forward with GC Strategies, we were then told to execute and move forward.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

It's all a bit unbelievable, based on the facts that have been disclosed so far, but I'm going to move on to the RCMP investigation.

Mr. MacDonald indicated that he has not been invited to participate or be interviewed as part of that investigation. Have you, Mr. Utano?

[Antonio Utano]

As I said earlier, no, I have not been contacted, nor am I aware if I am part of the investigation.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Do either of you expect to be contacted by the RCMP as part of this investigation?

[Cameron MacDonald]

I don't expect to be contacted, but if I am, I'm happy to comply.

If I could just answer you, Mr. Bachrach, I don't know what we've said that you find unbelievable. We provided evidence both to this committee and to the Auditor General that it was not us who selected GC Strategies. It's unfortunate the Auditor General didn't have the time to incorporate that into her report. We did speak with the Auditor General very late in the process, but it's very clear that we did not.

These came from CBSA's own notes, notes which were shared with the president, President O'Gorman. I don't take offence to your statement that it's not believable. I just don't understand what isn't believable. We don't have the authority to put contracts in place, and we clearly didn't make this decision. Those are the facts as they are.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

The thing that's unbelievable is that if you read the public reporting on this matter—the articles that have appeared in The Globe and Mail—if you read the preliminary statement of fact and if you read the report by Botler, it very clearly indicates that you had an intimate role in the ArriveCAN contract and GC Strategies.

Mr. Firth described you as someone who's been a friend for as long as you've been working for the government. Is that an accurate statement?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We're out of time, but if you could, just give a quick response.

[Cameron MacDonald]

It's not an accurate statement, and it's already been testified to that it was an inaccurate statement. If the member wants to watch testimony from previous witnesses, including me and others, the member will know that this is not accurate whatsoever.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Mr. Bachrach.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mrs. Block, go ahead, please, for five minutes.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to both of you for joining us today to provide further testimony on the issue of ArriveCAN.

My first question is in response to Mr. Utano's answer for my colleague Mr. Bachrach.

Did I hear you say that you were the individual who signed off on the contract requisition to PSPC for the first ArriveCAN contract awarded to GC Strategies?

[Antonio Utano]

To be clear, the requisition was the beginning of the process to put a contract in place. It wasn't the actual contract. That was only done after the decision was rendered on which direction and vendor to go with to work on the ArriveCAN application. That decision came down from our VP and president at the time.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

But you were the individual who signed off on that requisition.

[Antonio Utano]

I haven't seen the document the OAG was referring to, but it sounds in and around that same time frame and area.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you.

I guess my next question does refer to the Auditor General's report.

Why did you not pursue the alternatives given to you by PSPC to make this contract competitive? In other words, the Auditor General mentioned a suggestion that would have allowed a shorter bidding period of just 10 days, which would have worked with necessary timelines. Why did you not pursue that?

[Antonio Utano]

That's a good question.

I'll start off, and if he wants, he can jump in after.

I have a couple of things, just to put some more context to it.

Ten days is the timeline that would be put on the street, if you will, for vendors to participate. However, leading up to that, there's the development time to curate a proposal. That takes weeks if not months to do.

Second, when we worked with PSPC, we worked in conjunction with them and our internal controllership, with a targeted goal to move forward with an RFP as quickly as possible.

The third thing is that we were given direction from our superiors that we would not be able to stop. We didn't have the luxury of pausing during the pandemic, so we followed that direction and we were working with the experts in procurement and contracting. We did the best we could with the tools we had, but we never had the authority to just make unilateral contracting decisions. I just want to reiterate that.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you.

[Cameron MacDonald]

If I could, I'll add just a couple of things. The first contract that happened with GC Strategies was, I believe, for about $1.4 million. We were told at the time that it was exceptional circumstances. The borders had closed. We had no idea where ArriveCAN was going. We had no idea what it would turn into, and we were told, “Go get this done. We need to get something out there."

I have to admit, the CBSA—and I say it as an agency, not Mr. Utano or me—did push back at PSPC. Oftentimes, people say that something can take 10 days, but it can also take 10 weeks, so—