Government Operations Committee on June 5th, 2024

[Minh Doan]

I would.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

You know how to code, secure data and program. Do you understand how computer networks operate?

[Minh Doan]

I haven't coded in quite a while, but I do.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

There are investigations now ongoing about the missing emails and deleted emails.

I just want to make sure I understand correctly your opening statement. Your contention is that because you switched the battery out in your laptop, thousands of records were deleted.

I am not a computer expert, but I've switched out batteries a couple of times. I've never heard of that happening. Would you say that that's quite common?

[Minh Doan]

I would like to specify that I did not change my computer battery. It was determined that my computer had problems relating to the battery and that I had to change computers, so this was not about changing the battery.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

You needed to change the whole computer. In the imaging process, someone wiped your computer? I just don't understand. This is not something that I've heard of. Usually there are quite robust processes.

The IT staff here at the House of Commons, for example...and in my experience with IT working with the Department of National Defence, I've never heard of anything like this.

It seems incredible to believe that that's the story that you'd have us accept today. It's incredibly convenient for you that these documents are missing. How is it that you're both the victim of something that's exceedingly rare but also the beneficiary of something that's exceedingly helpful for you?

[Minh Doan]

The technical term is corrupt PST. Corrupt PSTs are actually not extremely rare. They are fairly common. It's actually so common that Microsoft put a tool in every Windows computer to fix them.

In terms of what you say, it is absolutely correct. When you get a new computer, it is imaged, but in transferring, it's no different from if you were to get a home computer. You would want to transfer files from your old one to your new one.

In that transfer, that is where the corruption occurred. It was fairly standard. You transferred files over and there was a corruption. That's what occurred.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

You are the chief technology officer of Canada. The practices that are in place currently now see quite commonly that, when government employees swap out their hardware, thousands of files go missing. That is your contention. With that state of play and your accepted standard, doesn't that compromise your ability to abide by federal law and information retention policies?

[Minh Doan]

When this occurred, I was not the chief technology officer of the Government of Canada. I was the CIO of CBSA.

In terms of the question that I failed to answer earlier, you asked if it was convenient for me. I don't know how having my files corrupted would be convenient to me in any way at all.

In terms of your other question of how often it occurs and whether it is a common occurrence, I think corrupted files are a common occurrence. As for how often it occurs when different government employees change laptops or computers, I could not speak to that.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

The destruction of emails and other documents is relevant to the information request as it relates to allegations about your involvement in the $60 million arrive scam and involvement with GC Strategies. Of course, the destruction would be to your benefit if you were attempting to cover up your activities and attempting to camouflage things that you had done. We've seen in the past prevarications by you at committee. We found that the main and favoured contractor also lied before committee.

The Information Commissioner of Canada is investigating you destroying these documents and evidence. Have you been interviewed as part of that investigation?

[Minh Doan]

No, no one from that office has contacted me.

To get back to what I was saying at the beginning, the fact that the emails are no longer on my laptop because of some kind of data corruption does not mean they no longer exist. These emails exist in all the other mailboxes of all the employees who sent me emails or received emails from me, and they can be obtained for the purposes of study or investigation. So this situation is no different from when a member of Parliament loses their laptop. The emails still exist.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Those are scattered across dozens, if not hundreds, of other people's computers. It makes the investigation exceedingly difficult when the agency you were with at the time has now been noted to have the worst record-keeping that's been seen in the history of the federal government.

It's far too convenient and simply not believable, what you're offering, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm afraid that is our time.

Mr. Jowhari, you have six minutes, please.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Doan, for coming to the committee.

I have a couple of quick questions and then I want to go to the emails.

First of all, I'm sorry to hear that you had health issues. It is unfortunate.

Can you confirm you have received the accommodation for appearing in this committee as you had requested?

[Minh Doan]

I can confirm that. Thank you very much.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

Can you also confirm that everything you have so far said to this committee has been honest and has been truthful?

[Minh Doan]

I also confirm that everything I've said so far has been honest and truthful.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

In your opening remarks, you talk about Mr. MacDonald's and Mr. Utano's testimonies and you read from their testimony.

Do you believe their testimony is truthful and it's against what's been said about you?

[Minh Doan]

To clarify, I didn't read that from testimony. That was from sworn affidavits, from their part with the Federal Court of Canada.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

As a clarification, in their affidavits, are they supporting your testimony or they are disputing your testimony?

[Minh Doan]

From their affidavits, they are supporting.

The question that keeps coming back is who picked GC Strategies, who knew them and who contacted them.

As I quoted—and I'm happy to quote again—it was ultimately recommended GC Strategies as the solution. That would have been Mr. Utano.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Okay. Thank you for those clarifications.

Now, I want to go back to the email. I'm going to draw on an experience I had recently.

Our computers are all Windows. When I was doing an upgrade on my personal computer, all my Outlook files were saved in an Outlook folder and that was backed up. When I got my new computer, those files were transferred, and then I brought up Outlook and it came up.

Now, as it relates to my work computer, I did not touch it. Basically, someone from IT came, took my computer and they went and did the reimaging. We got a new computer back. They came back to the office. They spent about 30 minutes with me. They made sure everything was up and they validated it. I didn't have access to any of my files to be able to do a transfer, similar to the experience I had when I brought my personal computer up.

I understand the fact you're IT savvy. Why wouldn't you go to IT and tell them, “Hey, look, here's my computer. The battery is dead. Can you get me a new computer? Please take care of it”?

I wouldn't assume a CIO of a department would have time to go and do all of that on their own.

Can you clarify that, please?

[Minh Doan]

Yes, of course.

As was previously alluded to, I've been in technology my entire life. I'm a proud technologist. I'm a proud geek and nerd around that.

Part of the IT team that reported to me.... Many people will attest that those who provide VIP service are extremely busy providing help for the other vice-presidents and DMs of the agency.

Any time I could on my own solve what I believed to be a fairly straightforward thing, such as a file transfer, I would do that.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

I just want to make sure I understand.

Somehow, as a CIO of CBSA, you seemed to have access to the file that was saved on the Outlook folder within the Government of Canada, CBSA...or whatever that folder is called.

Does everyone have access to a similar folder?

[Minh Doan]

I'm familiar with the set-up that you talked about in terms of what we would traditionally call a network share or a common share, where, in your case, the files would have been saved. These were files that I wanted to transfer from my local computer to the new computer I received. These were not from what you were referring to as a network drive.