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.
Chief Technology and Security Officer, Botler
No. They were never involved in anything.
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
It was just you guys.
You don't know why you would have done this without a.... You just did this on a handshake. You didn't have a contract with anyone.
Chief Technology and Security Officer, Botler
It was more than a handshake. We have a trail of evidence of how we were directed directly by a contracting authority from the CBSA, who has contracting authority.
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Am I getting it right? CBSA has contracting authority and they didn't contract you.
Chief Technology and Security Officer, Botler
They brought us in to do the work, so the work was—
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
You said they used GC Strategies to bring you in to do the work.
Chief Technology and Security Officer, Botler
No, they didn't. They used GC Strategies to receive payments from Coradix. GC Strategies is basically a ghost contractor. They don't exist on any legal documentation, but according to the Diane Daly email that was released today, CBSA insisted that the payments should go through GC Strategies—a ghost. They don't exist.
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
We had a contract with them, and they contracted you.
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
You didn't have a contract. You just did it because they asked you to do it.
Chief Technology and Security Officer, Botler
Essentially, out of nowhere GC Strategies came and said that Dalian and Coradix were brought in as a pass-through, and they will be the ones who will basically invoice the CBSA.
October 26th, 2023 / 5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
You weren't involved with ArriveCAN at all in any of those activities. They were, because they were contracted with CBSA, but you weren't.
Chief Executive Officer, Botler
But these identities that were stolen were executed through a TA that was used for ArriveCAN. There was criminal theft of our identifies on a contract with ArriveCAN.
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
That's why it's appropriate to have that investigated. That's what's being done. I presume that's what's being done. It's certainly not about ArriveCAN, because they're not investigating ArriveCAN, apparently.
Chief Technology and Security Officer, Botler
ArriveCAN is just a name. If you think about it, ArriveCAN is a trail of contracts and work that was built by GC Strategies and other contractors. We have an application called ArriveCAN, and contracts in those applications are being investigated. “ArriveCAN” by itself cannot be investigated, because it's just a name. For example, “Botler” can't be investigated. Acts with respect to contracting of Botler, or contracting, can be investigated.
When we're looking at any sort of investigation, I assume that the contracts engaged in our pilot will be investigated. That's just my assumption. I don't want to—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
That is our time, I'm afraid. I'm sorry. That is our time for this round.
It's Mr. Barrett, please, and then Mr. Jowhari.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
I want to circle back to my questions from earlier.
You had listed off a bunch of positions of people Mr. Firth had said were part of his friend and relationship network. Are you able to tell me the names of any of those people?
Chief Technology and Security Officer, Botler
Sure. I think we had an agreement to table some of those names. Mr. Philippe Johnston, who was the CIO of Transport Canada, actually approved the pilot, but COVID started so we couldn't start. There's Marc Brouillard, the CDO of Canada, and a long list of other individuals who were engaged with the team.
Chief Executive Officer, Botler
I would just quickly add to that.
There was an individual, only referred to us by his first name of Todd, who was an associate of Mr. Firth's who worked at PSPC and whom he referred to as the person who would be in charge of the entire enterprise rollout of Botler. He would essentially act as the sales agent for that transaction, for the entire enterprise rollout.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Was Kelly Belanger ever named as one of the people who was part of Mr. Firth's network?
Chief Executive Officer, Botler
We had a meeting with Minh Doan and several directors general in December 2019, and Kelly Belanger was present. As we were walking into that meeting, Firth told us, “Oh, Kelly is one of my.... I know her really well. She's really good. We worked together.”