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.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Okay. Thank you very much.
We've seen confirmation of bank transfers from Dalian to GC Strategies. I won't mention amounts, which likely suits you. I saw that there was a transfer to “Hoodspith CBSA”. I tried to find the company, but to no avail. I also searched for it as a last name. Can you shed some light on what “Hoodspith CBSA” is? In French, it would be “Capuche ASFC”, which makes no sense.
Partner, GC Strategies
Hoodspith is a person. It's not a company. It's an individual.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Thank you very much.
Mr. Bachrach is next, please, for six minutes.
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Firth, I think I'll start with some of your previous testimony before this committee.
In your previous appearance, when you were asked about the ArriveCAN situation and what it reveals about the government's contracting process, you said, “I don't think it reveals any[thing]. The reality is that it would have been a perfect execution if the four deliverables had been done on time and been of the standard the CBSA would have approved and paid. This was not a contracting issue.”
Since then, we have the Auditor General's scathing report. We have, from the Office of the Procurement Ombud, another scathing report looking at the contracting and procurement process. Do you still stand by that view that this was not a contracting issue, given all of the irregularities that have been very well documented?
Partner, GC Strategies
Well, can you qualify exactly the previous testimony? That doesn't seem like something that resonated with what I would have said. I don't think I blamed the contracting for the ArriveCAN. I explained the contracting, saying that there were three sole-sourced national security exemptions.
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Okay. Well, you said this was not a contracting issue.
Partner, GC Strategies
I'm not sure of the context. That seems like it's out of context. If you could kindly give me the information prior to that....
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I think the question was about what the ArriveCAN situation reveals about the government's contracting process. That's what you were asked about, and you said that you didn't think that it revealed anything, that you felt like the problem “was not a contracting issue”. It “was a performance issue”.
Partner, GC Strategies
PSPC did follow all procurement processes in issuing those contracts for COVID pandemic response, one of which was the ArriveCAN app.
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Okay. Despite all of the findings that have been brought forth by the ombudsperson and the Auditor General, you still feel like this is a performance issue and not a contracting issue, but I'll move on.
I think, Mr. Firth, that you've portrayed the services that your company provides as being IT recruitment, essentially assembling teams of IT professionals for the government, yet there's evidence that actually what was happening was the opposite—that the government was finding IT professionals who could provide services and then directing them to work with you. Is that what has happened in the past, specifically with Mr. MacDonald and other firms?
Partner, GC Strategies
Well, I think you're referring to one specific component where the firm approached CBSA and shortly thereafter those names appeared on one of our contracts.
That was part of the government's.... They have a process. They have a problem, and they have to find a solution, so they either have to go through an RFP, which sometimes takes three to six months, or they look to use an existing vehicle.
I can assume that maybe the opportunity was time-sensitive and that by using procurement processes three to six months would have taken too long, so they were asked to come to me or any other existing contract to try to get the work done sooner.
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I guess the hard thing for me to understand is how the public got value out of this, because, essentially, the government identified a contractor that could do the work for them, but instead of simply setting up a contract with that company, they suggested that it would work through your firm, which would take a commission. The actual contract ended up costing the Canadian taxpayer more than it would have if the government had dealt with the company individually. Is that a fair characterization?
Partner, GC Strategies
That's a fair characterization. In the end, until the processes, which have been in place since 2003, change such that the government can be a little more nimble and execute on directed contracts more quickly, that's going to continue to happen. It's very commonplace, and it frequently occurs that if a solution is needed quickly, the point of least resistance is to use an existing contract versus doing a new RFP.
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
There was a situation in which you had this existing contract that was somewhat nebulous, and it could act as a container for a wide variety of services that the government went out and identified and then funnelled through your existing contracting framework. Then you took a commission off the top of that, and—
Partner, GC Strategies
That would not be the case for my contracts. My contracts were very specific to the pandemic response, so a generalized bucket could not have been used. Those were the large contracts you hear about, which are called omnibuses, which have 30 or 40 different categories in place. Those ones would be the catch-alls for the majority of the projects that go on within a department.
Ours are very, very specific. We always have to make sure the requirement being brought up is in alignment with the original statement of work that came with those contracts. If it falls outside of those parameters.... I think Mr. MacDonald kind of gave testimony about this. Managers who didn't often get funding or funding for projects would put an ArriveCAN twist on them, or they'd put a pandemic twist on what they were doing.
This is why, again, the Auditor General's report is inaccurate, because, as she attested to in her report, you can't get a true cost for ArriveCAN because there could be other projects or other resources associated with that cost. Does that make sense?
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Isn't that a problem, though? If the government auditor can't trace the money to establish whether the Canadian taxpayer got value for that money, and there's no transparency on which projects are actually being paid for under different contracts, isn't that a problem? It seems as though that's one of the core problems the Auditor General has highlighted in her report.
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Okay.
How many projects have you worked on directly with Mr. MacDonald over the years?
Partner, GC Strategies
I have had three contracts with Mr. MacDonald, COVID pandemic response contracts.
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
How long have you known him? I think this was the subject of previous testimony, but it's just to refresh our memory.
NDP
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
How many times have Coradix and Dalian been subcontractors on your contracts or have you subcontracted to them?