Evidence of meeting #127 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 emails.
A video is available from Parliament.
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
That is incorrect.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Have you ever had any allegations of you making threats against another individual?
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
I have a personal matter that was brought to my attention, a family matter that I did not disclose, but I never threatened another individual, another public servant.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Okay. Did that matter come before the courts?
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
No, it did not.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
In the reporting process with respect to Mr. MacDonald, did Ted Gallivan ever speak to you about the threats against Mr. MacDonald?
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
Thank you for the question.
The first time I heard about these allegations relating to threats was when Mr. MacDonald testified before this committee in the fall of 2023.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Chair, I'll just ask for a bit of extra time because the witness is switching back and forth and it's taking translation extra time.
Well, I'm not sure if he's doing it for my benefit or for his, but—
Conservative
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Thanks very much, Julie. I appreciate the attempt at help there.
Multiple times at the committee we've heard you give answers that aren't clear, sir, in looking both to use up time and to be unclear in what it is that you're trying to say.
We've seen the text messages that you were concerned about, throwing a minister under the bus, and you and Cameron MacDonald getting your stories straight. Why was that your priority instead of just simply telling the truth to parliamentarians who were asking you questions?
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
I don't remember trying to get my story straight. I was actually calling Mr. MacDonald for facts that we did not have, and frankly, to this day, the investigation is ongoing, which is, who brought GC Strategies into CBSA? I was not trying to get the story straight.
Nobody at CBSA at the time could answer the question. He was closest to it. He was the DG in charge reporting to me and I called him for more information. He cordially, after this alleged threat—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Thank you, gentlemen. That is our time.
Mr. Kusmierczyk, please.
Liberal
Irek Kusmierczyk Liberal Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Doan, for appearing here today under difficult circumstances.
I want to go back to the issue of deleting emails. In his previous testimony in front of this committee, Mr. MacDonald said, “I'm very concerned that thousands of emails have been deleted to hide the truth.”
He went on to state: “My last comment would just be this: I think it's pretty clear that tens of thousands of emails were deleted by Minh Doan”.
I just wanted to ask you, would someone with the technical expertise, as Cameron MacDonald, be aware that emails deleted on a laptop would still exist, as you say, on a server?
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
Yes, and would exist both on a server and, as I mentioned in my opening statement, they would exist on every other computer and laptop that they would have received—
Liberal
Irek Kusmierczyk Liberal Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
My question, Mr. Doan, is this. Would Mr. MacDonald be aware, with his technical expertise, that those emails could still be retrieved if someone wanted to retrieve them?
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
You'll understand if I'm not inclined to suppose what Mr. MacDonald is or is not aware of.
Liberal
Irek Kusmierczyk Liberal Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
I understand.
Is it fair to expect that someone with technical expertise, IT expertise and background, would know that emails could be deleted on a laptop but still exist on a server and still be retrievable?
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
I would assume someone with rudimentary knowledge would know that, especially when it comes to government servers. You can't delete anything from the Internet. You can't make an email disappear once it's sent or received. You cannot do that. It is impossible. For anything I sent, there are backups of backups; there are backups of servers. With multiple servers being involved, each server has its own backup routine, and emails exist everywhere.
You cannot make an email disappear just because you deleted it from your laptop.
Liberal
Irek Kusmierczyk Liberal Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
Why would someone like Mr. MacDonald, who has IT expertise that, I imagine, is beyond basic, rudimentary IT expertise, talk about the deletion of emails and perhaps not be aware that those emails could be retrieved at will? That's the reason I was asking you that question.
Mr. Doan, we heard in previous testimony accusations that Mr. Firth and GC Strategies were working with public officials to design bid criteria or recommend bid criteria.
Is it appropriate, in your experience, for a vendor to approach and work together with a public servant on bid criteria?
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
Thank you for the question.
I made the same discoveries when I read the report of the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, and the short answer is no.
This is a competitive process. Given its nature, a competition is open to various people. If one person dictates or influences the terms of the competition, that definitely gives them a competitive advantage.
The short answer is that it is not an acceptable practice, both in the government and elsewhere.
Liberal
Irek Kusmierczyk Liberal Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
Thank you.
In his previous testimony, Mr. Utano stated the following:
What we were not responsible for signing is contracts, as we did not have contracting authority.
We were not responsible for selecting GC Strategies to work on ArriveCAN. This was Minh Doan's and the president's decision.
Can you speak to that?
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
As I said in my opening statement, there are sworn affidavits with the Federal Court of Canada, in which Mr. Utano and Mr. MacDonald contradict what you've just read back to me. Their affidavits are very clear. They found that GC Strategies were the best among those they were looking at, and they recommended GC Strategies. That is in their sworn affidavit with the court.
With respect to contracting authority, there are many sides to that question. In terms of what your delegation limits are, you can be the contracting authority and the technical authority.
For smaller contracts, CBSA could be both contracting authority and technical authority. However, for larger contracts, that would be exceeding their authority, which was the case for most contracts with ArriveCAN. They exceeded the agency's authority, so then Mr. Utano, in that case, was correct. We would have been the technical authority, and the contracting authority would have been PSPC.
