Government Operations Committee on Nov. 14th, 2023

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

Do you recall that meeting, though? Was that the first time you learned about the existence of GC Strategies?

[Minh Doan]

I have a meeting invitation and notes that they were there presenting, among probably others. I do not—

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

Do you recall that meeting?

[Minh Doan]

I do not recall that meeting.

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

Okay. We know that GC Strategies did work for CBSA prior to ArriveCAN. When, in your recollection, did you first become aware of the existence of GC Strategies?

[Minh Doan]

Other than their being a presenter at a board meeting, after that I know that GC Strategies was on the letterhead when the Botler demo was presented to us.

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

Okay.

Sir, I think everyone on this committee would be familiar with the phrase “make it look like an accident”, and that's starting to seem to be what this is sounding like. Nobody is going to admit, apparently, to choosing GC Strategies, but all kinds of factors were lined up in such a way that made it seem like it was the only choice.

You were at the centre of this choice, apparently. You say that you chose between the fully outsourced option, which you knew was from Deloitte, and the staff-augmented option, which you say at the time you didn't know who it was coming from.

Who brought this choice to you initially? How was it presented to you, this technical choice you tell us about?

[Minh Doan]

The material is here. There are essentially a bunch of emails. One says we're going to Deloitte. There's a deck that is presumably from Deloitte, with mock-ups and screens. There's a different deck that says this is the insource option—the material is here. In that second option I talk about, there is no mention of GC Strategies anywhere.

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

You were presented with two options. One had Deloitte. One was presented as an insource option, but it didn't have the name of the company involved. That's really weird. Did you think it was weird at the time? Did you say, “Hey, why is there no mention of the company or companies involved?”

[Minh Doan]

These options were developed over 48 hours. There's a very real possibility that at that time things were moving so quickly nobody even knew what company or staff augmentation would be required. There are many companies out there that do this type of work, so the first thing is, let's land on a technical direction.

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

You were presented with a fairly detailed deck explaining an insource option, though. Is that correct?

[Minh Doan]

The deck was not fairly detailed. It was developed in 48 hours. It was mostly mock-ups and screens of what the first version that cost $80,000 could potentially look like. You cannot do a fairly detailed deck in 48 hours.

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

Okay, but it had the mock-up; it had the precise costs in it, and there was a company that was behind it, but that company wasn't presented in the deck. That's what happened, right?

[Minh Doan]

There was no precise cost in this. As I said, it was developed in 48 hours. It was basically asking, in what direction do we want to go? There were early screens of what replacing a paper form could look like. At that time, I don't believe anybody had—

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

But you were presented with—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

That is your time, I'm afraid, Mr. Genuis.

Mr. Sousa, go ahead, please.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Let's get a sense here of what is happening.

We have a number of contractors you've dealt with over many years. How long have you been on your job, Mr. Doan?

[Minh Doan]

I've been an IT professional for 25 years, in my current role six years. For about five to six years I was the vice-president and chief information officer for CBSA.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Then, over that period of time, over decades, has GC Strategies been a supplier to government in those years? Do you know?

[Minh Doan]

From what I've learned and what I've seen, they have been providing services for a number of years to various departments.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Over various years, under various administrations of government?

[Minh Doan]

If memory serves, but I don't know exactly, I think they've been in business in the range of 12 to 15 years, if not longer. I don't know for sure.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

How about Deloitte? Do you know how many contracts they have going with the government, or thereabouts?

[Minh Doan]

I don't know for sure, but they are a multinational company that provides system integration professional services and consulting. The number must be very, very high.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

That's fair, so you have these two organizations, one that's been around many years dealing with various governments over a number of contracts. There's Deloitte, an international company doing great work on a number of contracts, and your decision, from what I understand—and correct me if I'm wrong—is that you were concerned about the integrity of the cloud and the safety of the information, that it should be more in-house versus on someone else's platform? Is that correct?