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.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
You said you received a total of about $100,000. Is that correct?
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
In the two payments you received, did you find any irregularities? If so, what were they?
Chief Executive Officer, Botler
Yes, actually. On the second payment we received from GC Strategies, there was an overpayment of about $2,000 and something. I'll have to confirm the amount. We knew there was something wrong with that amount. Recently, I reverse-engineered the math. If you multiply that $2,000 and something amount by six total payments, it adds up roughly to the $14,000 that's missing. We would say that would explain why GC Strategies, which was allegedly not receiving any cuts or commissions, was added as an extra ghost contractor on the transactions with Botler.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
If I understand correctly, you were a second subcontractor. Initially, you were supposed to have a $350,000 contract, but you were suddenly informed that you would have a $336,000 contract. Then you realized, in the second payment, that the difference had been received by the subcontractor GC Strategies. However, since that company was no longer receiving any money, that amount was distributed to you.
Chief Executive Officer, Botler
I would say that this is something that OGGO can ask for proof of, because we're not aware of the amount that was transferred between Dalian and GC Strategies, but we know that GC Strategies accidentally issued an overpayment to Botler of about $2,000. We don't believe that was a mistake because, when you multiply that amount times six, it adds up to $14,000, which is a missing amount.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
It's strange.
Our committee has studied Bill C‑290, which aims to protect people making a disclosure. All of the witnesses we've heard from have been threatened and pressured.
You made a disclosure. Were you threatened or pressured? Were you forced to do something for such and such a reason? If so, what was it, how did it happen, and whom did it come from?
Chief Executive Officer, Botler
Yes, we were threatened.
When we reported the misconduct, there wasn't just the September 2021 misconduct report. We also reported in December 2021, after which the CBSA responded by cancelling the project. They had asked for us to provide the remainder of the work over to them, which we did. We provided the work in full in February, but they came back in March 2022 and said that, on top of the actual work we did, we would have to hand over every single note, document and record we had that was associated with the project—essentially, that would be the records and evidence of the misconduct we had uncovered—and that those records should be handed over to Coradix and Dalian as the contractor, even though they were fully aware that we had reported numerous times that we had no relationship with Coradix and Dalian. Even if we hypothetically were to have it, why would we hand over reports of evidence to the people whom we had reported misconduct against?
In that instance, Diane Daly, who was in charge of the file at the CBSA, started threatening us in the name of Canada and making demands that we would have to hand over these files. She gave us timelines of, I believe, 24 hours. We were threatened in the name of Canada.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
As you know, you have immunity in this committee.
What were the threats if you refused to provide the documents? Have those threats materialized? If so, whom did they come from?
Chief Executive Officer, Botler
Those were issued by Diane Daly. Again, this is an individual from the CBSA who got involved once we started reporting, and she started sending responses on behalf of the CBSA. What they were demanding, on behalf of Canada, was that we send over all records that we have of all notes, file notes, documents or whatever we had. The threat was that, if we did not hand those over, we would not get paid, and we did not hand those over because that would be obstruction of justice. That's exactly what they were asking for in the name of Canada.
Because we did not hand over those records, they did not pay us the remaining amount owed to Botler.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
To be honest, I don't understand why you should have given them the notes, since you had given them the work for which you were supposed to be paid. I understand that, to date, in 2023, you have still not been paid in full for the work you did.
Chief Executive Officer, Botler
That is correct.
What I would add is that we handed over the work to the CBSA. We handed it over to Firth, Kristian Firth at GC Strategies, on February 3, 2022. Based on the PSPC contracting rules, I believe they have five days to review the work and get back to us if they have any requests for modifications. I think that more than 45 or 50 days later they came back to us towards the end of March, which is towards the end of the fiscal year, to pressure us then to hand over the documents, because there was a fiscal year-end deadline coming over. It was a pressure tactic to get us to co-operate and hand over documents to the parties that we had reported the misconduct against. Because we refused to do so, we were not paid.
Conservative
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
First, I wanted to start with thanking you for having the courage to do the right thing and to come forward. Really, you're heroes for so many people. Clearly, this has been going on for too long. I mean, there's more to this.
I want to go back to Ms. Vignola's thread around Ms. Daly. You'd gotten paid $112,000 so far. You'd been promised $350,000. You sent an email on September 27, according to The Globe and Mail. Ms. Daly sent a strongly worded email to GC Strategies and Coradix to pay you immediately. The next day, you got paid, or soon after. Is that correct?
Chief Executive Officer, Botler
That is correct, but there is some more context to it.
At the same time that we sent the misconduct report to Antonio Utano, Amir had also sent an email to Ying-Ying Ong, who was another project liaison at the CBSA, requesting that immediately payments to the contractors—Dalian and Coradix—be stopped and any payments that had already been made to the contractors by the CBSA be refunded. We also stated very explicitly in the misconduct reports we submitted that we would not be accepting payments from these contractors and that we are not comfortable being associated with these contractors.
After we sent that, Diane Daly then intervened and sent the email saying that the payment had to be issued right away. We were also told by the CBSA that it was impossible to request a refund from the contractors and the money had—quote, unquote—gone down the drain. We were put in a position where we felt that taxpayer money had been wasted, and we had no other choice but to receive those payments through those contractors so that taxpayer money would not have, essentially, been flushed down the toilet.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
How long had you worked on the project before you sent the email in September and you hadn't been paid?
Chief Executive Officer, Botler
Officially, we started work on the project at the beginning of February, I believe, but we had been working unofficially on the project for years. We started groundwork in I believe November 2019, when we were first contacted—
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
By Mr. Firth...?
Ms. Ritika Dutt —by Mr. Firth. Also we were told by Mr. Firth on behalf.... This was a message relayed from the CBSA: that as soon as we had the meeting with President Ossowski at the time, in September 2020, we should start work right away on the project and the contracting would come through after, that the CBSA always paid, but to start the work now.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
Okay. You hadn't been paid for well over 18 months. It's a long time to be running a small shop and trying to survive.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
I can't imagine the enormous stress and pressure you would have been under.
Ms. O'Gorman said on Tuesday that it was her “understanding that the individuals at Botler...have been paid.” Can you clarify?
Chief Executive Officer, Botler
I believe she's literally using semantics there to say that we have been paid something, but we have not been paid in full.
