Evidence of meeting #97 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was business.
A video is available from Parliament.
1:45 p.m.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
I'll use more common language, because I realize that the fable is part of francophone culture and anglophones may not be familiar with it.
Was this whole mess we're talking about caused by someone who claimed to be much more important than they were to rally people around getting a contract to design a sexual harassment app?
1:45 p.m.
Professional Consultant, As an Individual
I apologize, but I don't understand the question. Are you asking me if I or if Botler inflated their knowledge?
1:45 p.m.
Professional Consultant, As an Individual
I can't comment on GC Strategies, because I don't know. He conducts his own business
1:45 p.m.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
Mr. Brennan, you said it was Botler who wanted you to write a value proposition to Deputy Prime Minister Freeland, but on January 25, 2021, you sent Kristian Firth an email with a draft letter for Deputy Prime Minister Freeland. You referred to your conversation with him that afternoon and said, “I pulled together research and a suggested path over the previous two to three days to compile a deputy minister level email illustrating what I feel is pertinent to the value Botler AI can provide.”
You and Kristian had already discussed this, and nobody from Botler is even cc'd on this email. You sent it only to Kristian. In fact I don't think Botler had ever seen this draft, because their contact information, their phone number was still left blank. I just really want to be clear here, because you're under oath. Is it your testimony that Botler asked you to draft a letter to Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland on their behalf?
1:45 p.m.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
I also want to confirm as you sit here that you did not receive any payment for doing this work on the Botler project, including drafting this letter. Is that correct?
1:45 p.m.
Professional Consultant, As an Individual
The work that I provided for them was not specific to this.
1:45 p.m.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
Hypothetically, if you had gotten paid for that draft, would that have been considered lobbying?
1:45 p.m.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
Had you been paid for the draft, would that have been considered lobbying?
1:45 p.m.
Professional Consultant, As an Individual
Absolutely not. They asked me to draft a document. I was actually contracted by them to draft a document.
1:45 p.m.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
I'm going to go back to the question I asked you earlier on tabling all correspondence with Botler AI. You cited an NDA. I'm going to put forward a motion right now to this committee that we request a production of documents that go back five years and that it be viewed in confidence only by the committee because you're concerned about the confidential nature of it, and then we would review whether that should be held in confidence.
Mr. Chair, I move that we request these documents.
1:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Is everyone clear what Mr. Johns is looking for? He's looking for the documentation between Mr. Brennan and Botler, as I understand it, but the intent is that they will not be made public. They will be viewed within the committee only, much as we've done with McKinsey and for other documents in the past.
Is that correct, Mr. Johns?
1:45 p.m.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Fundamentally I don't have any issue with that. I would like to have it in writing in both official languages, and then I commit that our side will engage in that discussion. Traditionally we haven't had any issue, but let's get the wording, because we are requesting the production of documents. We generally agree, but when it comes to the wording.... The result is not what we're looking at, so I just want to get the wording. As I said, in general we haven't had an issue. Please have it in both official languages and then distribute it. I will commit to having that conversation tomorrow when we're meeting.
1:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Is that fine, Mr. Johns, that we can get it in writing and discuss it tomorrow?
1:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Thanks, Mr. Jowhari.
We're now going to Mr. Genuis for five minutes.
Go ahead, please.
1:50 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Thank you, Chair.
I think at this point it's important to take stock of and summarize where we're at in this whole ArriveCAN scandal and series of hearings. There are a few things that we know as a committee.
Number one, we know that $54 million was spent on an app and spent through a two-person company that did no IT work, was given the contract and subcontracted all of it. Also, we know that the RCMP are investigating contractors that have a relationship to this project.
We know the procurement system is broken. Government members—Liberal members—have testified to this at this committee. They've talked about the unwieldy and complicated nature of our procurement system and about how we have had substantial growth in the public service, as well as substantial growth in spending on bureaucracy. We have a bizarre procurement decision around ArriveCAN, and we have a procurement system that is broken overall and is leading to a proliferation of consultants hiring consultants hiring consultants, who have never done better than they are doing right now.
We also know that this committee has been repeatedly lied to by various witnesses in response to various kinds of questions.
Kristian Firth contradicted himself terribly in the course of his own two-hour testimony. We have a witness today, Mr. Brennan, who has told us that what he put in text messages previously was not true: Either he was stating untruths in text messages or he is stating untruths to us as a committee. We further have Cameron MacDonald and Minh Doan, two senior public servants, accusing each other of lying to this committee about who was responsible for the decision to procure ArriveCAN. We have multiple instances of people lying or accusing each other of lying. In some cases, we don't know who it is, but in the case of Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Doan, we know that one of them is lying.
Now, just this week, we have a story coming out about severe professional consequences against public servants who have testified at this committee. We now have a story that Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Utano have—incredibly—been suspended from the public service without pay in the middle of an ongoing investigation.
Clearly, this procurement decision—and procurement overall—has significant problems with it, but what I'm most struck by is the cover-up we are seeing in the context of these hearings. It should be fairly easy both for public servants and for consultants to appear before this committee and simply tell us the truth. It is not a stressful proposition to appear before a parliamentary committee if you simply plan to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but when we have people who say, for instance, that a text message they sent was “speculative and hypothetical” when it has every indication of stating direct knowledge of what happens inside government, then it raises other questions, and specifically why there is this ongoing multi-dimensional cover-up from both public servants and consultants.
It makes me wonder if one of the reasons people are so reluctant to be forthright and answer direct questions is the kinds of reprisals we've seen. When you have senior public servants who are a bit more forthright, in the case of Mr. MacDonald and others who have been, and who then see negative professional consequences after they've testified before this committee, it maybe elucidates why there has been a reluctance for people to come forward, but it also raises the question of what's behind all of this. What is being covered up? What would we find out if we actually got the frank, honest and clear answers that we want from public servants and consultants?
Let me propose what I think is more than speculative and hypothetical regarding Mr. Brennan's testimony. I think it's very likely that he does have a contact inside the Deputy Prime Minister's office, that what he said in his text messages was accurate, that he wasn't just making things up in repeated communications with other individuals in the text messages, but that he was telling the truth at those times. Now, for whatever reason, he is embarrassed about and reluctant to acknowledge that he somehow had intimate knowledge of the workings of the Deputy Prime Minister's office, and he is running away from the suggestion that he has any kind of contact or relations within government.
It just doesn't make sense to me that somebody would say outright falsehoods in text messages and then dismiss them as, “It was just a text message. It was just a hypothetical scenario.”
He was making statements to other people he worked with and making specific claims about the kinds of conversations that happened inside the Deputy Prime Minister's office. The only logical explanation for Mr. Brennan's repeatedly making claims about having intimate knowledge of what was happening inside the Deputy Prime Minister's office is that he actually had such knowledge.
Needless to say, this whole ArriveCAN affair stinks. It demonstrates the broken procurement system that exists under this government, but it makes me extremely curious—and I think it will make the public extremely curious—about what is being covered up. What will we find when we can actually get to the bottom of what took place?