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.
Noon
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
My next question is this: Who was the CIO at that time?
Noon
Assistant Deputy Minister, Health Canada, COVID and Pandemic Response Secretariat, As an Individual
Minh Doan.
Noon
Assistant Deputy Minister, Health Canada, COVID and Pandemic Response Secretariat, As an Individual
It was John Ossowski.
Noon
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
You've identified individuals who have misled the committee. I'm not going to use the word “misled”: I want to know who lied to committee, who lied to parliamentarians, who lied to Canadians. Identify those players, please.
Noon
Assistant Deputy Minister, Health Canada, COVID and Pandemic Response Secretariat, As an Individual
Frankly, if you look at that package that I provided to the OAG, there are three components.
The first one shows clearly that Minh Doan and John Ossowski were the ones who selected. The second—
Noon
Assistant Deputy Minister, Health Canada, COVID and Pandemic Response Secretariat, As an Individual
Minh Doan has completely lied to Canadians on multiple fronts.
Noon
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Did John Ossowski lie to Canadians when he appeared at committee?
Noon
Assistant Deputy Minister, Health Canada, COVID and Pandemic Response Secretariat, As an Individual
I can only assume that's what he did, because this is what Erin O'Gorman's own documentation in preparing for OGGO says. Even Erin O'Gorman pretended that she didn't know who selected GC Strategies, yet she was briefed on it.
12:05 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Health Canada, COVID and Pandemic Response Secretariat, As an Individual
Specifically, the third component says to please send this and the national security exemption request from Jonathan Moor—which Minh Doan was copied on—to Erin O'Gorman's own office. It just doesn't make any sense that nobody knew.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
When Erin O'Gorman appeared at committee last week, she was shocked that we were focusing so much attention on her. Did she lie to committee? Did she lie to Canadians that she had no responsibility or no knowledge as to who chose GC Strategies?
Answer yes or no, sir.
12:05 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Health Canada, COVID and Pandemic Response Secretariat, As an Individual
Yes.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Thank you very much, Mr. Brock.
Mr. Jowhari, go ahead, please, sir.
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Thank you, sir.
Good morning, gentlemen. Welcome back to our committee.
I'm going to pick up where my colleague MP Bains left off.
I felt that the answers that we got from both of you gentlemen around the commitment to get us some timelines may have left the door open.
I would like to specifically ask you both to provide to the committee—within one week, as per our procedures in the past—the timeline in which you received the initial statement of fact, the timeline in which it was given to your legal people and the timeline in which Mr. Brock reached out to you or to legal people, as well as the scope of the document that was given to Mr. Brock.
We know that the clerk received the document on February 9, and it was roughly about 10 days afterward that we were in a position to be able to receive that document.
Shortly after the appearance of the CBSA investigator and within hours after that testimony, there was a letter from a legal representative that said to ignore everything and to please not communicate any contents to the public in a public way. It seems that today we have completely disregarded all of those.
Can you commit, both of you—and I want a yes-or-no answer—that you will provide all those timelines within one week to the committee?
12:05 p.m.
Director General, Information Technology Branch, Canada Revenue Agency, As an Individual
Yes.
12:05 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Health Canada, COVID and Pandemic Response Secretariat, As an Individual
Yes.
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Okay. Thank you very much for that.
Now, let's go back. Both of you kind of referred to the initial statement of fact as initial statement of falsehood. Without getting to the detail, which I committed to in the past, I will not direct my question there.
Where do you believe the falsehood is? Around what parameters is the falsehood there?
12:05 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Health Canada, COVID and Pandemic Response Secretariat, As an Individual
First of all, I want to say thank you for respecting that privacy. It's meaningful to both of us.
It appears to us that somebody who knew us basically just went into our emails after consultations occurred and just started collecting things and putting things together with a narrative and a storyline that indicates wrongdoing.
Not only is the entire document couched in words that would make you believe something was wrong, but there's also “could have” or “might have”. These are not facts at all.
I just want to remind this committee that when Mr. Lafleur—who is not the lead investigator, but the executive director of the team—came here, he admitted that these were allegations. Even Ms. O'Gorman referred to these being at a point in time, so the question is that if this is a point-in-time document, why did they decide to release it at that time to our bosses and have us suspended with pay? Why would Erin O'Gorman make a phone call to our bosses? That's not a formal thing to do when you're dealing with such a serious subject.
How come there's no writing? How come there's no email or documentation that shows what she talked about with our bosses?
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
That's fair enough. Thank you.
I just want to understand. The follow-up question will get into the details, but I've made a commitment that I'm not going to talk about it to ensure the integrity of this process.
What are your thoughts about the AG report?
I am asking because the AG is telling us that there are a lot of documents missing. You specifically told us that in your role as a technical person, you sign a lot of documents, such as technical specs, time sheets and all of that. The AG seems to not be able to find that, yet you seem to be in a position to be able to say that this application could not have cost $80,000 and that it's $6.3 million. I thank you for at least bringing into perspective a number we could ground ourselves around in the development of this application.
With 15 seconds to go, can you explain to me what documents you can or cannot sign and what you have and have not signed?
February 22nd, 2024 / 12:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Mr. Jowhari, we've been letting everyone run a bit longer, so I'll allow a bit more time than 15 seconds to answer your question.