Government Operations Committee on Nov. 14th, 2023

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Well, your decisions led to four sole-sourced contracts between April 2020 and May 2022, valued at $43.1 million, so I would argue your decisions did have some consequence.

I want to provide you with the opportunity to respond. You've been to the committee, and there have been many challenges with some of the testimony we've heard, to say the least. Many accusations have been made against you regarding your being the one who made the decision and your being aware of what was going on.

Your wording today has picked a technical direction, and you reference other people on your team who were the ones who made the final decision to go with GC Strategies, among others. No names were given.

I want to provide you the opportunity again: If it wasn't you who made the decision, can you provide the name of the person who did?

[Minh Doan]

I thank the hon. member for his question.

I was the one who decided what the technological direction would be. So I'm responsible for that decision.

I think what you're asking me is to tell you who contacted GC Strategies to ask for a call for tenders. There's a difference between the two actions. I chose the technological direction.

I didn't know who called GC Strategies, and I still don't know. As I understand it, this is part of an investigation that the Canada Border Services Agency is conducting.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

I go back again.

If it was not you, you have not gone through any of the research or any of the documents that you've asked for and been given. Everyone is pointing the finger at you, saying you're the one who made the decision. Your quote is that it was only a “technical direction”, yet nobody in all the testimony that we're hearing is taking responsibility for what happened.

Who is going to take responsibility here? Do you take any responsibility for what happened here?

You haven't provided the name of the person through all the documentation notes you have been given and been going through. You haven't pinpointed how tens of millions of dollars of sole-sourced contracts got awarded over multiple years. The whole starting point is that you're not sure who it was, and it doesn't really matter to you.

If it wasn't you, do you accept responsibility, and if you don't, who should?

[Minh Doan]

As the CIO, I take full responsibility for the decision to go in that direction. That decision allowed us to deliver ArriveCAN for over two and half years. You mentioned that it was a multi-million dollar decision. It was not.

At the time, we did not know the pandemic would evolve the way it did. All the messages were that it would be over soon. We didn't know variants were coming. We didn't know vaccine certificates were coming. We didn't know about exempt travellers and everything that ArriveCAN had to do.

I made a decision. I stand behind it. It cost $54 million, and it was value for money. As far as I'm concerned, it saved lives.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

I think there are many Canadians who would struggle to understand how, at the beginning of all of this, you were making a decision to go in-house and have a hybrid of outsourced blends and multiple companies. You just made a selection and didn't happen to ask at any point whether to outsource or to go in-house, with the hybrid model of having consultants and other firms getting sole-sourced contracts.

It never bothered to cross your mind, in making one recommendation or another, to ask who might be the partners playing and delivering on things. I think Canadians are going to have a very difficult time believing that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Mr. Duncan.

Mr. Bains, please, go ahead.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Once again, thank you, Mr. Doan, for joining us today.

Just to go back to the Deloitte piece, it was screened out of the process. Was that related to the firm's performance on CARM?

[Minh Doan]

To clarify, there was no process. The decisions here and materials.... We got a request from PHAC on the 22nd. Options were developed in about 48 hours, and we had to make decisions in 24 hours. This was not a process.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Mr. MacDonald said it was because of CARM.

Was that true? Was that a true statement?

It was a program that was being worked on by Deloitte.

[Minh Doan]

The concern I had wasn't what was being done with CARM. That was being led by another vice-president. A major project like that would have difficulties over the years, and it's been years. The CBSA is still working on CARM.

The decision—

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

It wasn't the performance on CARM, as Mr. MacDonald said. Is that right?

[Minh Doan]

My concern was a fully outsourced resolution. It was something we would need in six weeks. There is no way—with an outsourced solution like that, with all of the moving parts—we would have had the version that we had out that quickly.

Also, my concern was—

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

I'm going to stop you there for a second.

Why are we here? We moved forward with a hybrid model. You made that decision. You said that was your decision, and that in the end, you stand by that decision.

Now we're here because there's a contract dispute between GC and Botler. Is that true? Is that why we're here?

[Minh Doan]

I thank the hon. member for his question.

I think we're here because of the allegations made by Botler. We already had these discussions last year, and the same questions were asked.

Why did it cost $54 million? Why did we do business with a relatively small company? We followed the rules.

We followed the rules of PSPC on procurement. No rules were broken as far as I'm concerned, and the allegations I'm not part of, I'm not investigating.

Right now, the decision and the concern I had around the Deloitte solution was that the information wouldn't be on our cloud, and I have documentation here that also attests to the fact that our cloud is secure and will give us the nimbleness and agility to proceed.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Going further into Botler's claims, they maintain that it's retaliation. We've also heard that their work was inadequate where there was a lack of resources to commit to the project. This is their work on the CBSA app that was cancelled.

Do you have any knowledge of that? What are your thoughts on that?

[Minh Doan]

I've heard the various testimonies. Now, in terms of this particular project, to be clear, this was something that another company was doing. We were not the IT developers here. We were not the IT delivery. The client was human resources, given the nature of it. My understanding was that two of the six deliverables were delivered, and for reasons.... Mostly, from what I recollect of how busy everybody was within HR and labour relations with the pandemic, there was not enough time to dedicate to this pilot. Now for the specifics of that and that decision, I would refer you back to the CBSA.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

To your knowledge, have there been any changes at CBSA and across the government in recent years to change practices around subcontracting?

[Minh Doan]

I believe I heard that CBSA have done a lot of changes—I'm no longer there—around how procurement occurs, how procurement is governed, learning from some of the lessons from things like ArriveCAN and others. I believe those are under way. I would refer you to the CBSA for that.

In terms of changes to subcontracting, PSPC colleagues were here to speak to that. I believe the OAG and the Office of the Procurement Ombudsman are doing various reviews.

If they find gaps on how to improve that, I sincerely believe that my PSPC colleagues will take those into consideration and take the necessary actions.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Mr. MacDonald said you specifically instructed him to help Botler deliver an executive-appropriate presentation. Is that like coaching somebody to deliver an appropriate presentation? Is this the case?

[Minh Doan]

Botler is a relatively young, new company that didn't necessarily know how to approach government, so no.... The answer to your question is not no, but if we were going to bring this presentation that I saw, which was very technical and probably too long, to a deputy minister, I said it needed to be more succinct and it needed to be more pointed in terms of the business problems that we were trying to solve and the outcomes. We were not—

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Is that regular practice?

[Minh Doan]

Absolutely. If we're going to a deputy minister and if I get a presentation at my level that's two hours, I will tell them, “You have 30 minutes, and you probably want to get your point across in 15 to allow the deputy to ask and answer questions.” That's not shaping the story.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks, Mr. Doan. That's your time.

Mr. Brock, go ahead please.

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

Mr. Doan, I'm going to go back to my opening line of questioning for you, because I asked you on two, possibly three, occasions and you didn't give me a straight answer. My colleague, Mr. Duncan, reminded you about a refusal to answer questions. I'm not interested in your version of a particular question I put to you. I expect a direct response to a direct question.

You identified a number of areas in which Mr. MacDonald has accused you of lying. I'm asking this very simple question, now a third and possibly a fourth time: Was Mr. MacDonald lying at committee when he said the decision to retain GC Strategies on ArriveCAN was yours and yours alone?

That is a yes or a no, Mr. Doan.

[Minh Doan]

That is not a yes-or-no question.