Mr. Conacher, thanks to Ms. Dutt and Mr. Morv, we've also had access to an email they received from Mr. Firth of GC Strategies. It's absolutely outrageous.
Mr. Firth tells them, “Corradix/Dalian [were] brought in as a pass through and they demanded 15%.... Your cost, plus 15% for me and 20% for Corradix etc., it rose to close to $500k!!”
He describes how CBSA was “pissed” at the resulting price increase. He says he wasn't going to tell Botler about the Dalian middleman at all. He thought he could leave them “none the wiser”.
Personally, I cannot be convinced that Dalian was necessary to facilitate this work when the party doing the work didn't even know they existed. On top of that, Mr. Firth is so confident that he can get Botler additional government contracts that he appears to offer to waive his fee for this contract and recover it from future ones.
This is all public information.
He says he's willing to remove himself from the deal. He asked if Botler wants him to “recover from Corradix” or “let it slide and look out to the next one to recover”. He mentioned a possible future contract with CRA.
If Mr. Firth is indeed suggesting that Botler pay him for his work on this project out of a future contract, would that be an example of contract performance fraud?
What other concerns does this raise for you, Mr. Conacher?