Government Operations Committee on Oct. 26th, 2023

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Ms. Kusie.

We have Ms. Atwin for five minutes.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll be splitting my time with my colleague.

I just want to be clear. If we talk about the CBSA being the one sending Mr. Firth, or about how you have to go through GC Strategies coming from CBSA, these are department officials. It's not ministerial staff that's directing you. Is that correct?

[Amir Morv]

This is Mr. MacDonald, mostly.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Okay.

If I could just go back to my question before we had our time cut off, where does Coradix come in? Again, I understand Dalian. Where does Coradix come into this?

[Ritika Dutt]

From what we understand, when you have contracts, you have both Dalian and Coradix. They're separate entities but they also operate in joint venture. From what we believe, the reason they operate in joint venture is so that with Dalian's alleged aboriginal ownership, they can go after aboriginal contracts, because now there is more than 51% ownership that is indigenous or aboriginal.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Coradix is just a partner, and they can come in under that same...?

[Ritika Dutt]

All the work is actually conducted by Coradix. I believe Dalian is just there in name and on the letterhead. The actual interactions, the day-to-day work and the running of the business are through Coradix, as I believe the Globe has verified. They operate out of the same office. They have the same staff.

[Amir Morv]

The invoices were issued by Dalian, so the work—

[Ritika Dutt]

They're on the letterhead.

[Amir Morv]

They're on the letterhead of Dalian. My personal résumé, which I validated, that has been forged is on both their letterheads. It's Dalian and Coradix letterhead.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

I want to go back as well to the testimony around emails being hacked and deleted and the technology you developed to source that. Can you provide that evidence to us as a committee to prove those allegations?

[Ritika Dutt]

We're also currently investigating that, but it was a third party solution called Mailtrack. They are a well-known service provider. Through Mailtrack we were able to see that at times, when Mr. Morv and I were together and neither of us was on our phones or laptops or on any other devices, we were getting notifications that very sensitive information and emails were being read first by me, though we knew it was impossible that it was being done by me.

I believe that we would have to involve Mailtrack in this investigation. They are an independent company. I'm not sure how that would work out. I think there's a bit more to figure out on that side, but in principle, yes, we would be willing to share.

[Amir Morv]

On my end, I have a list of IP addresses that are under my personal investigation, and I can provide them to you.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Thank you.

I'll turn it to Mr. Jowhari.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

I have about two minutes remaining. I'd like to quickly go to the enterprise rollout you talked about. I'm going to tell you what my understanding is, and you can correct me so that it can be on the record.

Botler was told that the application that the pilot was developed for could be rolled out across the enterprise through the CBSA, and CBSA would be technically charging $68 per licence, of which $40 would go to Botler and $28 of that to GC. That potentially might follow the same convoluted thing that would go to Dalian. Is my understanding right?

[Ritika Dutt]

Yes and no. Essentially, when we were contacted, we were contacted for a Government of Canada project, and the pilot for the CBSA was a means to the final end, which was the enterprise rollout. It was always the goal of the CBSA to be the pathfinder that rolled out the solution for Bill C-65 to the entire government.

Our standard price was $60 per user per year. GC Strategies said that he would add a 20% markup but, in fact, added a 30% markup to that suggested price. That brings it to $78.

The CBSA would then use their own procurement vehicles. I believe they said they wanted to put out an ACAN, the reason being that they could add an infinite amount of funds to that ACAN so that they would then be able to sell that markup, whatever they would add on top of $78—

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Once you realized that, you felt uncomfortable and said that there was something wrong here. Then you reported it.

[Ritika Dutt]

We reported a whole range of different activities. We never even got to that point of the ACAN, but that was one of the red flags we had. As Amir mentioned, we went to go get our fingerprints done, and we were asked for a requesting letter. Because we didn't have it, we called Firth and when we were talking—

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

I realize that. You were concerned that you were developing an application.... Just correct me. Was that $68 that you...?

[Ritika Dutt]

Our price was $60. GC Strategies wanted to make it $78, and he told us on the phone that Tony Utano had found a vehicle for the CBSA to sell it to the rest of the government.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

You were uncomfortable, so you were planning to report this as a wrongdoing as well.

[Ritika Dutt]

That was one of the issues. We wanted to go to the CBSA and have a direct contract, and we actually had a vehicle through which the CBSA could have contracted from Botler directly at that time.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, sir.

Ms. Dutt and Mr. Morv, thank you for your valuable time with us. It's greatly appreciated.

Colleagues, unless there's anything else, we are adjourned. Thank you, colleagues.