Government Operations Committee on Nov. 9th, 2023

[Michael Mills]

You're correct in the sense that it is the responsibility of the department, in this case CBSA, to determine what their needs are and the criteria they will evaluate against those needs and to set the grids. Then they actually undertake what we would call the technical evaluation of looking at the qualifications and experiences of those resources against their needs.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Am I right, or did I get you wrong when you said that PSPC enters into 10,000 different procurement agreements per year? Is that correct?

[Michael Mills]

Mr. Chair, we undertake 10,000 contractual items a year. A large part of that would be entering into new contracts. The rest would be things such as issuing task authorizations or amending existing contracts.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

It would seem to me that it requires a lot of departmental time if they're going to assess the abilities of subcontractors to perform the tasks and do such things as look at the résumés of everybody who's subcontracting. Is that the case? How many people are employed in our government to do this kind of work in each department?

[Michael Mills]

Mr. Chair, I would say that it's not that simple.

Each department will provide departmental resources. In many cases there would be a project. There would be a team that's working on the project that would undertake the evaluation of those résumés and whatnot. It's not necessarily that they have a dedicated team to review résumés and do the technical authority; it's really on a case-by-case basis, based on which unit of the department is undertaking that project. In some cases their own internal procurement folks will assist them, but it varies from department to department.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Out of curiosity, given the size of the government, with the number of subcontracting agencies and the number of résumés that must go to the government, how can you prove anyone's résumé?

I've sent my résumé to enough places, but I don't know that anybody actually goes to the university and says, “Did Marcus Powlowski really get his MD or LL.B. from your university?”

How much real checking of résumés does the government do?

[Michael Mills]

How much they validate the information is a good question for the technical authorities. Their focus is really looking at the résumés and seeing if the years of work and types of experience are related to what's being requested. I'm not sure what other levels of investigation and verification they do across departments of whether they actually attended the university that's on the résumé.

What I can say is that through the procurement process and within contracts, in terms of the representations and warranties on the part of the prime contractors, it's for them to attest to the validity of the information in those résumés.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

The prime contractor has the obligation to attest to it. Okay.

The second thing is that we've heard several members of the committee questioning what value, if any, companies like Dalian and Coradix provide for the charges and the government money they receive. I wonder if I could ask you about this, because I would have thought that you might question spending a lot of money on these sorts of intermediaries, but I would have thought that they performed some valuable tasks that take time.

The question was, why don't you deal with subcontractors directly? Do they not do a fair bit of the administrative things that are required in order to get something done for the government? Is that not the value that they add?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Give a very brief answer, please.

[Michael Mills]

Mr. Chair, I'd say that they add a number of values. One is sourcing people with the required skills and putting together teams, and yes, they do manage a lot of the administrative tasks in terms of payroll and whatnot for those consultants, and in managing the legal relationships in between.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks, Mr. Mills.

It's Mr. Genuis, please, for five minutes.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses.

Ms. Durigan, I understand that you were the signing authority for ArriveCAN with GC Strategies. Is that correct?

[Angela Durigan]

Signing authority in what sense?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

You were the person who oversaw the contract from PSPC's side.

[Angela Durigan]

There were several contracts that I did work on, yes. I did have a certain delegation of authority, but I also received approval authority, depending on the value of the requirements. Depending on the value, there would be a level I would go to, whether an ADM, a senior director or a director.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Okay.

Do you know who was responsible for making the decision to choose GC Strategies over Deloitte for the ArriveCAN contract?

[Angela Durigan]

For the initial ArriveCAN contract, it was CBSA that approached us with a procurement strategy for sole-sourcing. They presented GC Strategies to PSPC.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Who was the person from CBSA who brought that to you?

[Angela Durigan]

I don't know who brought it to us directly from CBSA. We received a package from them, but I don't know who made the decision. I have no oversight on that.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Okay.

This is a matter of dispute that has led various CBSA officials to accuse each other of lying about who actually made the decision.

Does anybody on the panel know this or have any information that will help us know who made that initial decision?

No? Okay.

To your knowledge, was Deloitte “in the penalty box”?

[Angela Durigan]

No, not to my knowledge.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Okay.

Would you have signed contracts with Deloitte around the same time you were signing the contract for ArriveCAN?

[Angela Durigan]

I would have to go back and look at that time frame. I work on a lot of contracts.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Okay, but—

[Angela Durigan]

I don't understand what the question is, or what the correlation is between whether or not I signed anything with Deloitte or GC Strategies.