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.
6:15 p.m.
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
No.
I am the person responsible for technology. I am not responsible for communications, policies and orders in council. I cannot voice an opinion on actions taken in relation to health.
I was supposed to appear before this committee to talk about the technology and its components. I cannot voice an opinion on the other matters that call for orders in council or on the reasons why there were so many, because that is not my field of expertise. I have to stick to my field, which is technology.
6:15 p.m.
Liberal
Jenica Atwin Liberal Fredericton, NB
We mentioned earlier that you clearly had a friendly, I would describe, relationship with Mr. MacDonald. You mentioned he was a close colleague. How would you describe your relationship now with Mr. MacDonald?
6:15 p.m.
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
Listen, because of allegations that were made in this forum more than once, it has, as I said, directly affected my health. I'm on medical leave. I'm using medical leave that I've saved, as good public servants do, over years and decades. It has affected my health.
The social media has been extremely horrible. My kids are old enough to read, unfortunately, on Google. I've heard of, because I'm avoiding social media, tweets out there that tell me I should go back to China. As a proud immigrant, who became a public servant to serve and give back to this country, you can imagine how that feels.
A lot of this, if I may be so direct, was because of allegations, mostly stemming from testimony by Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Utano. Therefore, no, I wouldn't qualify our relationship now as friendly.
6:15 p.m.
Liberal
Jenica Atwin Liberal Fredericton, NB
Thank you. I'm sorry to hear about those comments in particular.
You mentioned, in your opening statement, that there's a “conscious effort” to hide information from you. Who is doing this, and what kind of information do you believe is being withheld from you?
6:15 p.m.
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
That is a quote of what I heard from.... I do not have it. There was a Botler report that, in some respects, started all of this, a report of wrongdoing and misconduct. I think it was well quoted in The Globe and Mail, and in one of the earlier meetings in the fall, following The Globe and Mail article, one of the members was quoting parts of that report. I do not have access to that report. I've never seen that report. What I heard from that quote of the report was that there were deliberate efforts from individuals on my team to keep information away from vice-presidents, and I was the vice-president at the time.
6:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Thank you very much, Ms. Atwin and Mr. Doan.
We're now going to go to our second five-minute suspension before our next round.
6:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Thank you, everyone. We are back in session.
We are doing one more round and then we'll get to a 10-minute break.
We're starting with Mr. Genuis and then going to Mr. Sousa.
Go ahead, Mr. Genuis, for five minutes.
6:25 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Doan, I'm trying to put together the picture here. In the context of the arrive scam story, one big issue is missing records. The Auditor General has identified that this is a key issue: records that should be there that aren't there and that would help us understand what happened in this whole fiasco. The fact that the records don't exist or can't be found means that either they were never created or they were at some point destroyed.
Now, you are one of the figures involved in discussion of the ArriveCAN issue and, in the midst of this, we see very significant and detailed allegations around your files disappearing. If I understand your testimony today, your files encountered some kind of technical problem, and then you undertook a kind of a do-it-yourself on your computer.
You explain that this do-it-yourself procedure you undertook because the IT folks are very busy. Now, you're a senior public servant. I would think that you're very busy as well. It would seem odd to me if a CEO at a big company said that he's just going to schedule his own meetings because his secretary and scheduler are very busy.
Nonetheless, you undertook a DIY on your own computer outside protocol and, in the process, something went wrong and files disappeared. At the same time, we have a problem of missing records that makes it harder for us to understand what happened with the whole arrive scam issue.
Is my description broadly correct in terms of your testimony? Or have I missed something?
6:25 p.m.
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
In terms of.... I didn't attempt to fix anything. I had identified or had identified to me that my battery was about to go, and I needed it on my current work laptop at the time.
It was decided that before the battery failed and I lost all my data, I had to change laptops. When I did the transfer, as you say, I just copied files.
The DIY was as simple as a kind of a Control+C and a Control+V, so it was copy one file to the network—
6:25 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Okay, Mr. Doan. I know you've been trained on how to testify at committees and I don't want you to run my whole time.
I did ask a fairly clear question, I think. You testified earlier and you're testifying now that you undertook work that would normally be done by designated IT professionals. Instead of calling in the designated IT team, you went and did it yourself. Is that correct? That's essentially what you said earlier.
6:25 p.m.
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
Yes. I copied a file into the network and copied it onto my new computer.
6:25 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Okay.
In the process of doing that, files were accidentally—accidentally—damaged and that has led to a situation in which it's hard to find these records.
According to this IT employee who spoke to The Globe and Mail, the fact that you didn't engage the proper IT professionals for this is extremely unusual. It's outside the proper protocol. You contacted an individual IT employee directly at one point instead of going through the proper process.
I mean, how are we to find you credible, sir? I want to give you the benefit of the doubt here, but how are we to find your testimony credible, given how central missing records are to this whole story, that you, one of the central figures in this story, undertook to go outside the normal protocol to manipulate things on your computer on your own and, in the process, files were corrupted and disappeared?
How are we to believe credibly that, oh, you were just trying to save the folks in IT some time as a senior manager, and, oh, something just happened to go wrong?
6:25 p.m.
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
Beginning in 2023, the OAG report was not out. You mentioned missing records. Missing records was not a discussion or a point at that time, so to imply that I would have done anything specific for missing records, I didn't. In terms of the—
6:30 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Sir, that timeline has no relevance at all.
I'm almost out of time.
Why did you undertake this do-it-yourself on your computer? What is the real reason why you didn't use the proper protocol?
6:30 p.m.
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
Because I was highly—
6:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
I'm sorry, Mr. Doan. I have to interrupt you here because we are out of time, but perhaps Mr. Genuis can get back to that in his next intervention.
Mr. Sousa, for five.
6:30 p.m.
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Doan, has any member of this committee attempted to contact you outside of appearing before this committee?
6:30 p.m.
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
No.
6:30 p.m.
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Have you shared any information with any elected officials around this committee or within the ministry?
6:30 p.m.
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
No.
6:30 p.m.
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Has any minister attempted to talk to you or direct you to make a decision or prepare you for today?
6:30 p.m.
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
No.
6:30 p.m.
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Do you know if any members of this committee have had outside discussions with Mr. Utano or Mr. MacDonald or that they were contacted by members of this committee regarding this investigation?
6:30 p.m.
Chief Technology Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
Thank you for the question.
Yes, it did happen in the case of other committees.
I have seen at different committees that certain members had been in touch with Mr. Utano and Mr. MacDonald, so at least that's what I saw and that's what I heard.
6:30 p.m.
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
You're aware that CBSA has been investigating Mr. Utano and Mr. MacDonald. Of course, there was a preliminary statement of facts that was divulged, I believe, to members of this committee prior to being available to others. Do you know of that? Are you aware of that content?