Government Operations Committee on Oct. 29th, 2024

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

On that point of order, Chair, I'm sure that we could go back and look at the blues of what just transpired. It's my understanding that the chair was asking for unanimous consent to invite two of these commissioners to this meeting. When Mr. Sousa asked to intervene, the chair asked if it was on this schedule. That's exactly how it happened. You can go back and take a look at what was said.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mrs. Shanahan, I think we had one from you. I'm sorry. Did we hear it already?

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Yes. Mr. Kusmierczyk made my point. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Colleagues, I'm trying to get through the day and address all of the issues. Sometimes we do it in a rather informal way. However, I have stated and I've ruled that Mr. Genuis made the comment that I believe is correct, which is that we were on a different order of business. I will try to get to it. We have 25 minutes.

Mr. Sousa, we will be able to get to any discussion and any motions on this. I'm going to just move forward with whether we can agree or not agree regarding the procurement ombudsman. Then we'll get to Mrs. Kusie, then we'll get to Mr. Sousa.

I'm sorry. Go ahead.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

You're talking about inviting these members to be in our committee, which is interesting, and I'm okay with it.

I'm just wondering if you have dates that you're particularly hoping for. Is it just a general request?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

It's a general request. A lot is going to depend on Minister Hajdu's availability. If she's not available, period, that opens up a bit more time. We are operating around, as we often do, a minister's availability.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Ministers' schedules are the norm. We all are used to it.

I want to state for the record, because I'm new to this committee, that I do understand that this committee meets a lot during break weeks. They're not break weeks for me. I have a large riding, and I spend a lot of time there. I do want to express concern and hopefully leniency to have conversations with the chair.

In some of the areas of my riding that I might be in, connectivity is a challenge. Some are quite great with that, and it just depends. I just want to bring that to the committee's awareness, and I hope that we can be respectful. If we had great Internet everywhere in the world, I think that would be great for the country. However, like some of the members here—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I've worked and lived on the island, and I hear you. I state we will not be here two weeks from now—

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

I would like just to say that perhaps we can have some consideration for that, because some days just may not work for me, because I book well ahead, as I'm sure everybody else does. I hope that we have an open dialogue around that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Yes, we can, 100%.

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

On that note, I just wanted to say to my colleague that I 100%, appreciate what you just said. I back you up on that point 100%.

Unfortunately, I have to highlight the fact that around this committee oftentimes we don't have a choice. Very often the decision to call a meeting during break week is made unilaterally by the chair, and it is quite often made with less than 24 hours' advance notice. I just want to tell my new colleague at this table that quite often the other MPs and colleagues around this table don't have a say when those meetings are called. This is precisely the issue that we wanted to address with what my colleague MP Sousa was going to raise. He had the floor to raise this issue. We understand how incredibly disruptive it is when we are not consulted on when we meet, and the disruption it causes to our work as a member of Parliament and to our privilege as a member of Parliament doing our work. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks.

Colleagues—obviously depending on the schedule of the minister—are we okay with possibly sometime in December, and the procurement ombudsman for an hour and the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner for an hour?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Wonderful.

I will follow up as well with our vice-chair about the minister. There were some signals that it was a possibility. She testified yesterday, I think, on a bit of this issue that we're studying here, so hopefully she will join us.

We'll now go to Mrs. Kusie—briefly, I hope—and then we'll get back to the discussion with Mr. Sousa.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Further to the events of early last week, I'm sure that as our new member of the NDP becomes briefed and familiar with the happenings of this committee over the last several months, they will be further informed as to the situation we were dealing with early last week around the former CIO of the CBSA.

Mr. Chair, I will now present the motion that I will be moving here today:

Given recent concerns regarding information management of public servant emails, pursuant to Standing Order 108(1), the committee call the following witnesses and undertake a four-meeting study to better understand how the Government of Canada’s information management policy, the Privacy Act, the Access to Information Act, and the Treasury Board's directive on information management govern the handling and storage of government records:

The President of the Treasury Board, Anita Anand;

Treasury Board officials;

The president of the CBSA, Erin O'Gorman;

The Information Commissioner of Canada, Caroline Maynard;

The former chief technology officer of Canada, Minh Doan;

The chief technology officer of Canada, Luc Gagnon;

Former assistant deputy minister, Health Canada, Cameron MacDonald; and

IT security specialists involved in the investigation

As I indicated, Mr. Chair, I and I'm sure many other Canadians and those who follow the government operations committee have been in confusion and disbelief over the order of events of Minh Doan's emails. I will briefly review the timeline.

On February 23, 2023, Minh Doan is alerted that there is an access to information request on his email.

On February 27, 2023, he states that his PST file has been “corrupted” and that this has impacted his emails available for the ATIP.

In December of 2023, an IT employee submits a complaint to the internal investigator, Michel Lafleur, and describes the event as follows:

When I had my conversation with Mr. Doan, the things he was telling me or saying he was advised to do made no sense. I have never heard of a [vice-president] or an individual who receives VIP treatment in regards to IT related tasks taking it upon themselves to move files or organize information in the way he suggested he did.

In January of 2024, his email deletion is announced in The Globe and Mail, and Minh Doan responds:

I am deeply concerned that this all seems to be part of a pattern by certain individuals to deflect attention, to blame me for their actions and decisions, discredit, and harm my reputation, despite growing evidence that demonstrates I had no relationship with any of the vendors in question.

On June 5, 2024, Minh Doan appears at this committee and states that the CBSA and SSC have no backups of his corrupted emails. That is then followed by an email communication to this committee in October of 2024 in which Erin O'Gorman writes to the committee that this backup does not exist and that all local files were deleted when Minh Doan left the CBSA, as his email address was deleted upon departure.

The bottom line, Mr. Chair, is that something happened here whereby the CIO of CBSA inconveniently had his files corrupted days after they were sought under the Access to Information Act. I will add that this CIO went on to become the chief technology officer of Canada.

Whether it was malicious actions in the face of a sound process or a failure of the process, we must get to the bottom of finding out what happened so that this does not happen again in our public service and in the face of Canadians.

Mr. Chair, our study of ArriveCAN may be coming to a conclusion, but the level of process failure and the incompetence or the poor actions of individuals must be determined for the good of all Canadians and the confidence of all Canadians moving forward.

I will conclude my opening comments there after having moved this motion.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you.

I'm sorry, Ms. Blaney; is this in regard to getting a copy, or were you putting your hand up to speak about this?

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

I want to speak about this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Please do. The floor is yours. Then we have Mr. Sousa.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you for this.

I don't have a lot of concerns about it. I have an amendment I'd like to move, but prior to that I have a quick question.

You also talked about inviting the former assistant deputy minister at Health Canada, Cameron MacDonald. I'm wondering why it's that person in particular. Based on other committees I've sat on, I often find that a former anything always says, “Well, I don't remember”, so we don't get much.

If I could get some clarity on that, it would be very helpful.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I had Mr. Sousa next.

Are you fine if she responds to that question, Mr. Sousa?

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

To add the amendment....

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

No, she had a question on it.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

I just have a question first. Then I'm going to do a quick amendment.

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

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Go ahead.