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.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
How about from Mr. Lafleur, in his ongoing investigation?
12:55 p.m.
Partner, GC Strategies
He reached out to me and actually took a nice stance of understanding my well-being, including for this testimony and what it would be like. He has actually sent me the questions in writing, which I will respond to.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Do you still have to respond to him? That hasn't happened.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
In regard to your earlier testimony around omnibus contracts, are those related to what the ombudsman talked about, the bait and switch? Can you explain that?
12:55 p.m.
Partner, GC Strategies
No. An omnibus contract is usually a large contract put out by a big agency like CRA, or even CBSA, for general IT services and not for a specific technology. It would incorporate 20 to 30 different categories and different levels of skill sets.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
12:55 p.m.
Partner, GC Strategies
A bait and switch happens when a vendor puts forward a bid and wins the contract. Then they switch out people on the bid for people who weren't on the bid to do the work. Typically they'll get more money. Sometimes it's because those people aren't available. It depends on how long it takes to evaluate the bid.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
12:55 p.m.
Partner, GC Strategies
No. The ombud said that 76% of the resources did not work on ArriveCAN. We can say that every single person we put forward who was caught up in a task authorization worked. Nobody we had did not work on ArriveCAN. Anybody we presented worked on ArriveCAN.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
When it comes to ArriveCAN, it has been mentioned that it was established at $80,000 and then it ballooned. In your case, you said you received $11 million. The Auditor General is saying it's $19 million.
Can you explain the reference to $80,000 versus what has happened?
12:55 p.m.
Partner, GC Strategies
I think that was just for the proof of concept, the understanding of what it would take for paper to go digital. Then it turned into a project. Then, all of a sudden, it ballooned into PHAC having all of these agency requests, policy changes and subsequent amendments.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Could ArriveCAN ever have been produced to the extent that it has been for $80,000?
12:55 p.m.
Partner, GC Strategies
You're integrating with back-end systems. You're dealing with mainframes. You're using platforms. That wouldn't even have covered one month of what AWS charged for cloud services alone.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Understood.
Mr. MacDonald called you to contact Botler. Mr. MacDonald had a relationship with Botler before you. Is that correct?
12:55 p.m.
Partner, GC Strategies
Again, he didn't call me to reach out to Botler. I was made aware of the situation the Public Safety portfolio was having. At that point I reached out to Botler through LinkedIn.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
I understand. That's when you went back to MacDonald?
12:55 p.m.
Partner, GC Strategies
No. That was when I was working with Botler to put together a proposal. At that point I submitted it to CBSA as a point of reference.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal