Government Operations Committee on March 26th, 2024

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Is the name Government of Canada Strategies or GC Strategies?

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm sorry. I'll pause your time, Mr. Sousa.

Go ahead on your point of order, Mr. Brock.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Mr. Chair, Mr. Sousa is deliberately misleading the evidence. We already got confirmation from Kristian Firth that in GC Strategies, “GC” stands for Government of Canada.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

That is not a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

That came right from Kristian Firth.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Latitude, latitude....

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mr. Sousa, you have five and a half minutes.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

I appreciate that. I just want to get clarity on whether the company is called GC Strategies or is, in fact, called something else.

I don't believe there is a contract with that name, the name “Government of Canada Strategies”. It doesn't exist.

Mr. Moor, is that correct?

[Jonathan Moor]

I can confirm that all of the contracts are in the name of GC Strategies.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

That's fair enough.

Mr. Moor, can you provide us with some context now? I think there's some clarity required in terms of the last round of questions. How did it become ArriveCAN in the first place? Who ultimately made decisions collectively to achieve what has been established to this point?

Right now the question is this: Who signed for GC Strategies? We're all concerned about how those contracts were arrived at and to what extent those privileged...that was possibly given to one contractor over another. Please confirm.

[Jonathan Moor]

There are a couple of questions in there. What I would say is that the contracts for GC Strategies were arranged through the contracting authority, which is PSPC, and the CBSA, which is the technical authority. The contracts were signed by the border technologies innovation directorate, and at that time, the majority of the contracts were signed by Mr. Utano, who was the executive director. The counter-signatory was Mr. MacDonald, who was the director general.

What I said in my previous answer was that the vice-president at that time was Mr. Minh Doan. The information, science and technology branch was responsible for developing the application and implementing the application within six weeks of the start of the pandemic.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

In terms of the Auditor General's report, you've read it, I presume. I know you have because you provided your concurrence with some of her recommendations. There's a dispute in terms of what amount was actually attributed to the overall program that grew throughout the process. Can you give us some clarity in terms of those numbers?

[Jonathan Moor]

The CBSA supports the calculation of $55 million as the total cost of the public health measures within ArriveCAN. The OAG in the report actually confirms—I think in paragraph 1.24—that they identified the public health component as being $53 million. However, they did add a further $6.2 million for the customs e-declaration, which computerized the old E311 form. On that basis, they came up with a calculation of $59 million. We have a detailed reconciliation between the two numbers—what has been included in our numbers around the public health measures and what's been included in the OAG numbers, which include other activities, particularly the e-declaration but also mobile border costs.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Who was making those decisions as it escalated?

Obviously, there were a number of contractors who were engaged in this. Who made those other decisions for these other contractors?

[Jonathan Moor]

In terms of the overall cost of ArriveCAN, at the start of this process, we did not know what the costs would be. In fact, in year one, we expended about $5.6 million, and none of that was funded externally. We had to fund that within the CBSA.

In the second year, we received some additional funding. We received $12.37 million from the Public Health Agency of Canada, and we were in supplementary estimates (B). We also received $12.4 million from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada in supplementary estimates (C). Therefore, in the second year, we had a $25-million budget, which we managed to a separate cost centre, and that's when we created the new code.

In the third year, we requested funding. In budget 2022, it was announced that the agency would receive $25 million.

Over the course of three years, the money was incrementally provided to the CBSA.

I recognize that it should have been established as a project from the start. It wasn't, and that is very unfortunate, because it meant that we did not have the normal governance structures associated with project management.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Is ArriveCAN still being used today?

[Jonathan Moor]

ArriveCAN is still in operation. I actually used it myself a couple of weeks ago to return to Canada.

About 300,000 people a month use it, so about 3.6 million people use it. There are big advantages to using ArriveCAN. There are now dedicated lanes at the international airports that operate with ArriveCAN so that you can get to the front of the lanes. It also significantly reduces the transaction time at the primary inspection kiosks.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Does the CBSA have the ability to do it in-house, as you stated earlier?

[Jonathan Moor]

I'd say the CBSA did this in-house. However, it used staff augmentation to assist it.

I think one of the lessons learned is we were relying too much on staff augmentation. Staff augmentation is not a bad thing. You need to bring in people who are technical experts and, in particular, cloud experts, who we may not have in place, as well as other experts in technology architecture and security accessibility.

It's not a bad thing to bring in contractors and consultants. The issue here is whether we overuse them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks, Mr. Moor.

Thank you, Mr. Sousa.

We'll go to Mrs. Vignola, please, for six minutes.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, gentlemen, for being with us today.

In her report, the Auditor General mentioned that PSPC had “challenged the Canada Border Services Agency for proposing and using non‑competitive processes for ArriveCAN and recommended various alternatives.”

I'd like to ask you two questions about that.

First, why were PSPC recommendations ignored?

Second, what would have encouraged the CBSA to accept the recommendations it received from PSPC, which performs a challenge function, as it did in this case?

[Jonathan Moor]

Thank you for the question.

As it was confirmed last week, I think by the deputy minister of PSPC, these concerns were raised at the director general level within the information, science and technology branch. It is unfortunate that they weren't raised at a wider level. I, as the chief financial officer, did not receive any concerns.

I think this is one of the key lessons learned. This is the reason why, in the new code improvement plan, we've instigated the executive procurement review committee, which will allow us to scrutinize all contracts and all task authorizations above $40,000. This will provide the second line of defence and allow us to do that.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

From what I understand, then, the recommendations weren't implemented because you weren't informed.

Should you have been informed?

[Jonathan Moor]

I think we should have been informed about it. I think PSPC is clear that it informed the agency, but it informed the agency at the technical authority level.

At that time, Alex's team was looking after the CBSA contract authorities. There were four contracts in total. The team was also very involved in the acquisition of PPE at that time.