Evidence of meeting #80 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 rcmp.
A video is available from Parliament.
President, Canada Border Services Agency
—and passing information to the RCMP through December and January on the Botler AI.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
I'll take that as a no.
Mr. Ossowski, I have a question for you, sir—
Liberal
Irek Kusmierczyk Liberal Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
On a point of order, Mr. Chair, if my colleague could just permit the witness to answer the question, it would be to the benefit of all of us.
October 24th, 2023 / 4:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
I appreciate that, but that is not a point of order. It is the member's time, and we would ask that our witnesses answer the questions.
Go ahead.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Mr. Ossowski, on December 8, 2022, you did not volunteer that the agency, the contracts that were awarded by the agency, and the consultants, were under RCMP investigation.
Is that a yes or no?
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
You were also asked on no fewer than five occasions about your knowledge of GC Strategies, and in particular about the owner or the president of GC Strategies, Mr. Firth. On each of those five occasions, you denied knowledge.
Today, you're telling us that, oops, now you remember: Yes, there were communications, and yes, you were part of a meeting.
Why should we believe you now, sir, when you deliberately withheld that information when you were asked on five occasions about your knowledge of Mr. Firth and GC Strategies?
As an Individual
Mr. Chair, I did not deliberately deny anything. I was made aware of those when Mr. Curry reached out to me on LinkedIn to say he was working on a story about this.
I told Mr. Curry that I had not verified any of my testimony with the agency and I did not have any access to my business records. To the best of my recollection, I answered truthfully that I had no recollection.
Quite frankly, I still have no recollection of meeting Mr. Firth.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Thank you, Mr. Ossowski.
Mr. Ossowski, you were asked a question very early on in the meeting by my colleague, Mr. Michael Barrett. He asked about your time as president of the agency, asking, “Did you have contact with Kristian Firth of GC Strategies in that role?”, meaning your role as president.
Now knowing that you had a Zoom call meeting with Mr. Firth of GC, as well as the principals of Botler....
You said on record, sir, over a year ago, “No.”
That was wrong. That was a misleading statement to committee. Is that correct?
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
I don't care about your intentions, sir.
Is that your response at the time? “No.”
As an Individual
If you were here for my opening remarks, you would have heard that, in hindsight, I should have verified my testimony. I apologize for any confusion it has created.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
I want to know why you, as the president of a significantly large government agency, were not notified by your insubordinates—one of them being Antonio Utano—about an allegation not only of wrongdoing but of potential criminality involving identity theft, fraudulent résumés, forgery, fraudulent billing, collusion and impersonation.
How is it, sir, that you, as president, would not be notified of a potential criminal investigation? Surely, that complaint went to your legal department.
Are you saying there is no chain of command, so that a situation like this, as serious as it is, does not get reported to the president?
As an Individual
I have no recollection, and the agency has told me this matter was not brought to my attention during my tenure as president.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
It's rather convenient, though, that you, as an agency, reported this to the RCMP when the proverbial you-know-what had hit the fan and everyone was talking about this $54-million price tag.
With the little time I have left, you can truly appreciate, given the lack of clarity from you and Ms. O'Gorman, why the RCMP's investigating this matter. You appreciate that now, don't you?
As an Individual
If it had been raised to me, I would have done the same thing as Ms. O'Gorman. I would have done an investigation and, if needed, I would have referred it to the RCMP. However, it was not.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Thank you very much.
We'll go to Mr. Jowhari for five minutes, please.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I was part of the initial study, and at no time during the testimony did we hear there was any involvement of the RCMP, so this comes as not only a surprise, but a bit of a shock, and the extent of it is mind-boggling.
I'm going to start with Mr. Ossowski. You are familiar with the article everybody's referring to by Bill Curry—you referred to it as well—which was published on October 4 and updated on October 6. I'm going to quote a statement made in it:
The allegations stem from a relatively small contract—valued at less than $500,000—but the money flowed from a larger $21.2-million contract for general services that was also used by the agency to fund outsourcing work related to the ArriveCan app.
If my recollection is correct, the application's initial pilot cost less than $100,000 and then, as I recall, we had 70 modifications that were done. The total cost after the testing and all of those things was about $9 million.
Can you shed light on how a contract valued at less than $500,000 gets flowed into a $21.2-million contract, and that $21.2-million contract is part of a larger outsourced project?
As an Individual
I wish I could, but I was not involved in any of the contracting options that were used for ArriveCAN.
As an Individual
Mr. Doan probably had officials who were working on it. They were the ones who were looking at whether we had the staff internally to do it, whether we needed to bring someone in, and whether there was a contract vehicle in place and any of the firms had the talent we needed. It's a decision that's delegated down into the organization.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Mr. Doan, is there anything you want to add?
I understand the concept. I was in management consulting and we had open contracts through which we provided services. I assume, as part of that open contract, that when the urgency came up, a portion of that contract was used to develop this app or further develop this app, but what is the process for then getting these authorizations?
Chief Technology Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
I was not aware of the specific vehicle contract that was used for the Botler engagement of which you speak.