Evidence of meeting #81 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 cbsa.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Thank you.
Kristian Firth told you he was friends and had a relationship with Cameron MacDonald. Is that correct?
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
In reference to Mr. MacDonald, did Mr. Firth tell you, “I've been with him his whole career in the government”?
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Were you ever coached or directed to offer praise of Mr. MacDonald?
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Who else did Kristian Firth tell you he was friends with and had a relationship within the government?
Chief Technology and Security Officer, Botler
Mr. Firth had a very wide network of high-level executives whom he was friends with. They were mostly contracting authorities, C-level government executives and assistants.
I remember Mr. Firth and one of his associates always referred to breaking their rules. Mr. Firth dealt only with DGs and up to ADMs. One of his friends dealt only with all the ADMs and DMs. Other contacts Mr. Firth had in those close relationships were, I believe, a director general and an acting chief information officer of Transport Canada, which was another agency that wanted to procure Botler—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
I'm afraid I have to interrupt. That is our time.
We'll go to Mr. Sousa, please, for five minutes.
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you both for being here.
We all share concerns. We want to make certain that we get to the bottom of this, that people are being respected, that there is integrity and that there are proper discipline and processes in place. I appreciate your standing up and recognizing some of these issues.
During the project, how many people were working on it? Was it just the two of you, or were there more in your shop?
Chief Executive Officer, Botler
No. There were several people who worked on the project.
I was not working on the project—I was on medical leave—but Amir had a team at Botler working on it that was internal. We also had several subject matter experts who were external to the project. The TA would not have been correct and reflected that there were only two resources.
Liberal
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
You had no relationship with the Government of Canada. Other than doing the work, you had no contractual relationship with the Government of Canada.
Chief Executive Officer, Botler
For this instance, no. We had a separate contractual relationship with the Department of Justice for a completely different project, but for this specific project, no. We had no—
Liberal
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
This is not about ArriveCAN. You're disputing with your middlemen, I guess.
Is GC Strategies the one you had a contract with?
Liberal
Chief Executive Officer, Botler
They spoke with us. They were speaking on behalf of the CBSA. The CBSA also—verbatim—told us to work with GC Strategies.
Liberal