Government Operations Committee on Nov. 14th, 2023

[Minh Doan]

I preferred to use our existing resources, our existing cloud and our existing code. Another factor in that decision was speed and agility. As I said, after that week, frankly, the first version was launched about five weeks after that. When we deal with a multinational like that, that is impossible. Multinationals are properly documented. Everything is a change request. Everything is a negotiation. When you deal with a multinational, by the nature of it, it is much slower. There is no way we would have had a solution in five weeks, dealing with a multinational like Deloitte.

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

That's fair enough.

The issue with Botler is a separate issue altogether. GC Strategies didn't have a contract. That's completely different. Now, though, you've got ArriveCAN and you're in the midst of a pandemic, and things are not normal. As much as you want to be able to proceed in a normal fashion, you're not in a normal state at this point. You're reacting to a lot of incoming...but you're maintaining the integrity that you think is appropriate regarding the procurement process.

Explain to us what you mean by making a technical decision versus the procurement itself.

[Minh Doan]

In the early days, the technical direction was to do staff augmentation, which would require companies giving us access to technical resources fairly quickly. As the pandemic evolved and ArriveCAN evolved and got more and more complicated, more companies were involved and successive contracts were engaged and necessary as well.

From my recollection, specifically on GC Strategies, the first three contracts were sole-sources and the last contract was a competitive process, which they won.

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

Then you were not aware in the decision that you were making to have more internal control, that GC Strategies would be part of that deal. You weren't looking at GC Strategies as a supplier at that point.

[Minh Doan]

No. I was not aware that that direction was implied, and I'm not sure, even 48 hours later, that it was even a known thing. In terms of—

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

Then, as it proceeded, contracts were signed, and GC Strategies became a supplier—one of 30, I think you explained. How much were GC Strategies to make in their contract? Do you know?

[Minh Doan]

There's a breakdown in my material of how much each of the contracts was worth. What I understand is that ultimately, although I've heard contradicting numbers here, the numbers I have in my memory are around $11 million over four contracts, over several years. To be clear, as a business model, they're not personally making $11 million. Depending on the rates they're charged by the subcontractor, they would make somewhere between $1.5 million and $3 million, according to my math, over the span of four contracts and almost two and a half years.

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

GC Strategies would have solicited and gotten a number of other subs or service providers to do the work.

Is that correct?

[Minh Doan]

Yes, absolutely.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you very much, Mr. Sousa.

We're going to do our final round now, colleagues. We're a couple of minutes ahead, so I'm going to add one minute to each of the six interventions, starting with Mr. Brock.

You have six minutes.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Doan, I'll go back to Mr. MacDonald's statements from the last time he appeared at committee. We talked about a number of lies that he claims you made. Now, specifically, I want to talk about the alleged threats.

Mr. MacDonald claims he was directly threatened by you on more than one occasion. You claim that didn't happen—that you did not threaten. Both versions of the facts cannot be true at the same time.

I'll ask you this again: Is your version truthful? Was Mr. MacDonald lying to this committee about your threatening him with respect to the exposure of GC Strategies, yes or no?

[Minh Doan]

My version is truthful. I never threatened Mr. MacDonald. I said that if we couldn't come to an answer, the committee may turn to—

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

I will, by extension, claim that Mr. MacDonald was lying to this committee. I know you have an aversion to using that language, probably as a result of some legal advice, so I'm not going to push you on it. Clearly, you claim now, under oath, that your version is accurate.

Did you seek advice from him on your initial upcoming testimony at this particular committee? He claims you were very nervous, emotional and, at times, crying. You were desperate to get some guidance from him, even though he had been removed from CBSA for close to a year at that point. You wanted guidance on how to testify at OGGO.

Is that correct?

[Minh Doan]

Thank you for the question.

What I said earlier is that I did not threaten Mr. MacDonald. I would like to clarify that. I did not threaten him. I said—

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Sir, did you ask for advice on how to testify at your first committee meeting, yes or no?

[Minh Doan]

I asked Mr. MacDonald, who was there at the time—and this is in my briefing book—whether he could help clarify the facts and the situation during that very difficult period for the Canada Border Services Agency, in March 2020, because he was more in the loop than I was.

We were preparing—

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Thank you for that.

I have an actual copy of the email that Mr. MacDonald wrote on October 29, 2022, at 11:28 in the morning. It was sent directly to you. It was cc'd to Kelly Belanger. It was cc'd to Carol Sabourin, to Antonio Utano and to a Josh Bird.

This was the subject matter of the Globe and Mail story that broke on October 4, 2023. I'm not going to read to you, sir, the exact seven pages of the email, but certain excerpts from it. Mr. MacDonald says to you, “You asked me for advice on the key question of 'Why GC Strategies' but I also think we are all grappling with 'Who selected GC Strategies'.” He wrote that in the October 29, 2022, email.

Let me stop you right there. At this point, despite your telling this committee about all of the information, that you “picked a technical direction”, you were prepared, sir, to take the advice of Mr. MacDonald to claim ignorance—that you weren't aware as to who directly chose GC Strategies—because you said that on four occasions in your previous testimony. You said it was part of “my team”, and you weren't able to identify with clarity, as you are today, sir, with respect to the technical direction. That concerns me.

Mr. MacDonald's email contains several suggested answers for the executives. As an example, “I will start by saying that I was not personally familiar with GC Strategies during the time in question”, the document states, although it is unclear which executive would be expected to deliver that line.

The email also predicts some of the questions they will be asked:

If pressed: Come on. We want some accountability here. Who decided? How did this company get a contract for almost 9 Million dollars? Who made money off of this? Who was getting rich off of tax payer dollars?

In the document, that's followed by a recommended response:

Mr. Chair, I stand by my statement that I don't believe there was a single person, and I'm not actually aware of any rules being broken or wrong doing. That is not how we operate at the CBSA.

This exchange, this email, with coaching on what to say and anticipated questions by committee, is so disturbing on so many levels, sir. It's akin to obstructing justice. In my former career as a Crown attorney, it would elicit a police investigation if this type of evidence came out with respect to a trial or a hearing. Parliament is a little different, but it's still disturbing to me, sir, on many, many levels that you sought coaching specifically on what to say and to not accept responsibility for GC Strategies.

Have you been coached today, sir, on what to say and what not to say?

[Minh Doan]

I have not been coached today on what to say. There is an email that documents what I actually requested of Mr. MacDonald, in which I said that, leaning particularly on his time in the first year, when all of this was being stood up and the various moving parts, I would appreciate his view or additional edits to any of the material in preparation for the agency's appearance the following week.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks, Mr. Doan.

Mr. Sousa, go ahead for six minutes, please.

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

Mr. Doan, how many contractors were involved with ArriveCAN? I think you mentioned 30. Is that correct?

[Minh Doan]

Thank you for the question.

If memory serves me, there were more than 30 contractors—but I will ask the agency for the exact figure.

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

GC Strategies is one of those contractors. The claims are that GC Strategies was making a cut on the deal, and that they didn't deserve to make money because they didn't do the actual work.

Are the other 30 contractors that you signed in the same arrangement?

[Minh Doan]

These types of organizations do security screening work. They do vetting. They connect. They have a network that can give you very, very quick access to the skills you need that would be impossible to get yourself in terms of contracting, finding them and getting in touch with them.

That's the work these companies do.

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

I appreciate that. So the other companies would have taken their cuts too, presumably.

[Minh Doan]

Thank you for the question.

Among the thirty or so contractors, there were many that were offering different things, and it did not always involve a staff increase.

We worked with Amazon, for instance, for cloud computing. We also worked with Microsoft. Certain very specialized companies were offering security services for mobile applications, for instance, to help us interpret the certificates.

In terms of 30-something companies, the CBSA can provide the list of who they are and what they did. Only a number of them would be in the subcontracting business.