Evidence of meeting #108 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 contract.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
That is our time, Mr. Genuis. Thanks very much.
Mr. Bains, please go ahead.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Firth, for joining us today.
I'd like to get to the bottom of the process. I think Canadians are still trying to understand how this process works and how contracts get awarded.
Elected officials come and go. You've been working with government, through the bureaucracy, with public service officials since 2007. Can you maybe take us back to your first time working with the government and what the processes were then? Did they change over time? How did you and your colleagues, your partners, navigate through any changes—if there have been changes—through those processes?
Did you build relationships over that time? Did our bureaucracy and our.... Ultimately, we have public service officials who work for decades in different departments, hundreds of departments. Did they get comfortable seeing you? Did they overlook certain processes?
We're trying to get to the bottom of how contracts are being given out. In this case, you've received hundreds of contracts since 2007 in your time working with government. Maybe walk us through your time during 2007 and try to answer some of those questions along the way.
Partner, GC Strategies
Okay. Thank you.
Fundamentally, the government has a problem. They identify the need to change the technology, and they need a team of people to come in or there's just something they need to get done. At that point, they determine that they need to put an RFP in place. They'll work together in putting requirements together. They'll put everything they need in a statement of work and so forth. At that point, it goes onto a public tender, onto Buyandsell, and companies are invited.
At that point, you then decide whether you're going to bid on the opportunity or not. If you are, you then look at the requirements. You then go find the people. You then make sure they are security cleared and are actually going to be the ones doing the work, should you win the contract.
If you are successful, at that point there are task authorizations that go against that contract, which are for individual pieces of work that go against that contract. A task authorization typically has a small statement of work. It will have its tasks. It will have its deliverables and the number and types of resources that it wants. At that point, you would then respond to the task authorizations. Bear in mind that it is one business at that point, because you already have the contract. You would then submit the task authorizations, which go through due process. That would be evaluated by the department, and that's how you typically would get one or a number of resources in to do the work.
Liberal
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Is there a failure of our officials to go through the correct processes? You, over time, ultimately became someone who mastered the process of how to get these contracts. Is it just that you know how to follow those guidelines? If you look at some of the issues that have arisen here, you're saying that this is the process, where recruitment is the norm and you're bringing on people to complete these tasks. This process hasn't changed since 2007. That's what we're—
Partner, GC Strategies
That's correct.
Saying we're lucky to be.... What makes us so “lucky” is that we're determined to be a two-person company that's figured out how to do what 10 people do, or what 20 or 30 people do.
Everybody has the same tasks. If you are an owner or an employee of an IT staffing firm, you just have to follow the process that's been put out by PSPC. It's black and white.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Fast-forward to your time.... How many people did you actually end up recruiting for the ArriveCAN job?
Partner, GC Strategies
ArriveCAN would have been around 35 to 40 people in different capacities, but for the CBSA proper, for the whole three years we were working there, it was over 100.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Each of the 35 people would have had to go through a verification process.
Partner, GC Strategies
Yes. Please be clear that the government cannot go directly to these resources. It needs vendors like us to pass these people through.
Liberal
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Thanks, Mr. Bains.
We'll go to Mrs. Vignola, please, for two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Firth, I'm going to make a few statements, and I'd like you to tell me whether they're true or not.
As I understand it, GC Strategies was never responsible for the financial coding. The contracting authority, so the CBSA, was responsible for the financial codes that the Auditor General needed to conduct her audit.
Partner, GC Strategies
That's what the Auditor General's report says. I thought somebody in the financial department would have been in charge of that.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
All right. Thank you.
The only thing your company was responsible for was putting the contract numbers on your invoices. Is that correct?
Partner, GC Strategies
Typically, it's contract numbers and task authorization numbers. Confirmation is signed off by the government.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
All right.
The Auditor General noted that the CBSA didn't use the financial codes properly. Presumably, then, everything would have to be verified manually. That would mean comparing every invoice and every document. Do you think a manual verification process like that would reveal the correct data, whether it pertains to your company or someone else's?
Partner, GC Strategies
I'm sorry. Can you repeat the question? I want to make sure I give you the right answer.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
If the Auditor General undertook a manual verification of the financial codes, would it result in a corrected version of the information she released a few weeks ago? I'm talking about correct information, whether it pertains to your company or others.
Partner, GC Strategies
I would have to ask what the manual verification would entail and whether all the information they're verifying manually is actually all of the information.