Government Operations Committee on Nov. 14th, 2023

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

The CTO has no input at all if they see a company that is being accused of violations getting further contracts with the Government of Canada.

[Minh Doan]

My role is around the technology direction. It is not around values and access of companies. Different parts of the organization, primarily PSPC—

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

That's regardless of the values.

[Minh Doan]

My role—

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

The values don't matter.

[Minh Doan]

My role, as the chief technology officer, is not to be involved in that type of procurement activity. There are different parts of the organization that do that. I set technical directions. I was not consulted on this—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, gentlemen. That is our time.

Mr. Genuis, please, go ahead.

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

Mr. Doan, from what I understand, there were initially six companies that were identified that could have built this app. Is that correct? What were the six companies?

[Minh Doan]

I'm not aware of what the six companies were. I know of three of them. One of them was Apple; the second one was Deloitte, and the other one was a hybrid solution that would have used most of our existing coding and technology.

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

That so-called hybrid solution was the GC Strategies one.

[Minh Doan]

That ultimately became the GC Strategies one, yes.

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

Okay.

It seems that one of the core points of contention comes down to who chose GC Strategies. Some $54 million went through this company. It was a two-person company working out of a basement, with no in-house IT expertise whatsoever, and it did very well financially off this contract. Therefore, everybody wants to know who actually made the choice to hire GC Strategies. Everybody who might have been responsible for that decision is telling us they weren't involved.

You have testified that you did not choose this company. However, you've also testified that you were presented with two models of service delivery. One of those, you say, was fully outsourced, and the other one was partially outsourced. You made the choice, without knowing which company was associated with which bid, to choose the partially outsourced solution, as opposed to the fully outsourced solution.

Is that your testimony, essentially?

[Minh Doan]

I chose a direction. It was partially outsourced as, actually, staff augmentation.

If I can clarify one part, GC Strategies did not receive $54 million. I've heard numbers here at $9 million or $11 million. They did not receive that—

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

Okay, $54 million was spent on ArriveCAN, and it went through GC Strategies.

I want to focus on the piece about the decision you made. You were presented with a choice between a fully outsourced option and a partially outsourced option, and you gave the direction, made the decision, to say you wanted the partially outsourced option. Is that correct?

[Minh Doan]

I made that decision.

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

Pardon me?

[Minh Doan]

I made the decision to go to a model that would use staff augmentation and our existing cloud, and that would leverage existing code. I made that decision.

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

You made that decision, and you are telling us that at the time you made that decision, you had no idea that there were specific companies associated with specific options. Nobody mentioned that GC Strategies was presenting this option and that Deloitte was presenting this option. You made that recommended technology direction in complete ignorance about which companies were behind which option. Is that what you're telling us?

[Minh Doan]

That is not what I am telling you.

I would like to remind the committee that this was not $54 million in March—

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

That's not my question, sir. Answer the question. You have an obligation to answer the question. That's part of the way this process works.

[Minh Doan]

I am answering the question.

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

No, you're not. You're telling me that you were not ignorant of which companies were involved. When you were presented with those two options—a fully outsourced option and a not fully outsourced option—are you telling me you knew at that time that Deloitte was behind one of them and that GC Strategies was behind the other?

[Minh Doan]

I did not know that GC Strategies was behind the other, and all the evidence I found will support what I just said.

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

Pardon me? Can you repeat that, please?

[Minh Doan]

I am saying that I was aware that one of them was Deloitte, and I was not aware that the other one was GC Strategies. All the evidence I found that supported that decision around that time will support what I said. There was no mention of GC Strategies.