Government Operations Committee on Oct. 20th, 2022

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you.

Mr. Jowhari you have five minutes, please.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses.

Mr. Firth, you indicated that you are an IT recruitment firm and, in your opening remarks and your responses to some of my colleagues, you talked about 150 releases and you also said that you are not a technical developer or a programmer. Let's start at the top. With full disclosure, I am, or I was, an IT consultant. I ran a consulting firm and I have extensive experience in program management and project management as well as product development.

We understand someone called you based on your extensive relationships dating back to at least 2015 and said, look, we need these resources. At any point, did the conversation talk about the scope of the overall project and the resources that were needed, and you said that you could get them these resources? Do you as an IT recruitment firm have an understanding of the overall project scope and the scope of the piece that was asked of you and your organization for staffing?

[Kristian Firth]

First off, this was not a relationship. We got the business from 2015. We were currently, in the organization, doing similar sort of work in 2019, so we were approached because we already had similar skill sets to what they were looking for.

Unfortunately, I do not have the intellect that you do surrounding technology, but the government came to us with a list of requirements, a statement of work and exactly what the task and deliverables would be for each resource. At that point, we were finding the resources. We weren't—

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you for that response.

At a very high level, can you give us an understanding of what the top three key requirements were and the scope of what your company was asked to resource?

[Kristian Firth]

There are different categories per resource, but you had iOS and Android developers that involved some wire framing, which is essentially building what the shell would look like, and then we had some technical architects and mobile architects who worked alongside the federal government or took direction for the overall architecture of the front end. You would then have the web application developers, who would do the same for the web as the mobile developers would do for the mobile.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Those are three areas where you were asked to provide resources. Can you explain how the 150 releases come into the picture? You said your staff has provided 150 releases. Can you expand on that?

[Kristian Firth]

There are three platforms: the iOS, the Android and the web. Every time there is a change in law or there was something that happened.... The pandemic was always changing, and objectives were always changing throughout those two years.

Sometimes some of those things required the functionality or the work flow of the app to change, whether it was proof of vaccination or there was an accessibility issue. Again, every time these things had to be fixed, they had to be fixed on all three platforms. I think the web had around 40. The Android needed about 60, and the iOS had about 70 different releases as a result of what was unforeseen.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Can you talk about who managed the overall project or the overall program?

[Kristian Firth]

It would be the CBSA, the federal government.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

The federal government had project managers. At no point was your organization asked to provide project management there.

[Kristian Firth]

No, we were not responsible for the direction of the project, the objectives, the budgeting or cost controls.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

During a regular program update or project updates, which are usually weekly, was your organization or were any of your members involved in providing project updates aside from the tasks that were assigned to them?

[Kristian Firth]

I cannot speak to every single resource's day-to-day activities. We're not in the trenches with those. We're an IT staffing firm. I'm assuming that, as part of the delivery team taking direction from project leads or employees, they would be facilitating those requests.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Just on the notes, the $9 million of the $54 million is about 16%.

[Kristian Firth]

I'm sorry. It's approximately $9 million. I don't have the financial assistance that the government has for the exact numbers.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

How much of the scope do you think your resources covered of the $54 million?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Give a quick answer, please.

[Kristian Firth]

I can tell you that we've billed approximately $9 million for the app.

We didn't build ArriveCAN, like I mentioned. We were responsible for certain requirements of the ArriveCAN application.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you.

Ms. Vignola, you have two and a half minutes, please.

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

I'd like a quick answer, Mr. Firth. Did you use any of the $9 million to pay the people you had recruited or did the money used for their salaries come from another budget?

[Kristian Firth]

We paid all the resources, or the subject matter firms we received them from, directly to those.

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

Was your organization only responsible for programming the app or was it also responsible for managing the promotion of the app?

[Kristian Firth]

No, as an organization we were not involved in any of the day-to-day activities or the project management for the application.