Government Operations Committee on Jan. 17th, 2024

[Vaughn Brennan]

Botler is a small company. They contacted me over and over, several times, to look at what they could do. I was helping them, and there were a lot of marketing discussions. As soon as an email like that was sent, the strategy would change. The marketing discussions were based on hypothetical scenarios, possible white papers, opportunities that might or might not arise, and I can tell you specifically—

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

You were doing this as a charity. Is that what you're saying?

[Vaughn Brennan]

Again, they were a small company starting up, and I was hoping to help them formulate.... I'm not a marketing person. I'm specifically a business process engineering guy.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Mr. Brennan.

Mr. Brock, go ahead, please, for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Following up on our line of discussion regarding lies and fibs, I want to clarify something on which I'm not sure I understand your position.

In relation to the email that ultimately went to Deputy Prime Minister Freeland and her chief of staff Broadhurst, who brought the idea forward? Who was the genesis of creating this particular document?

[Vaughn Brennan]

It would be Botler, the Botler executive.

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

Your evidence is that Botler approached you. Botler, apart from working with Justice Canada on a previous project, had zero inside knowledge with respect to any government employee or a member of the government, and they said, “I think this is a great idea. Mr. Brennan, what do you think, and can you help us draft it?” Am I led to believe, sir, that is how it started?

[Vaughn Brennan]

No. I can actually shed a little more information on that.

As you may remember, around Christmastime, CBC actually published a whole article on what was happening in the Governor General's office. In the Governor General's office, Madame Payette, I believe, had a few issues.

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

I'm sorry to interrupt, sir, but my time is limited.

Perhaps you could just help me. You're steadfast that it was Botler's idea and not your idea or Kristian Firth's idea. Am I correct?

[Vaughn Brennan]

So—

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

Could I have a yes or no, sir? That's a yes.

[Vaughn Brennan]

At the end of the day, my idea was specifically to look at—

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

Sir, thank you.

I'm looking at an email from your company. You're the owner and director of TEALAV Consulting Inc. It's an email dated January 25, 2021, at 4:33 p.m. to Kristian Firth. The subject is “Following up on Privy Council opportunity”. It doesn't say they just picked up an idea or a thought from Botler. It says, “Following up on Privy Council opportunity”.

In the email, you say to Kristian Firth, in reference to your conversation with him that afternoon, “I pulled together research and a suggestive path over the past 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 identify the honourable Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister, Government of Canada, and you include a draft letter. The only thing that was missing in the draft was details with respect to Ritika Dutt's phone number.

This, sir, did not come from Botler. It did not come from Ritika Dutt. It did not come from Mr. Morv. It came from you. You did the research. You reached out to Kristian. You worked on this over three or four days. Then I have a series of emails back and forth between you and Botler, with Botler making some suggestions for changes to the email and you providing the email address for Chrystia Freeland and her chief of staff.

Do you want to reflect on what you told the committee earlier, sir? Are you prepared to admit now that this was your idea, that you thought of it? You cleaned it up and you provided all the details to Botler to send this email directly out to one of your government contacts in the Privy Council Office, did you not?

[Vaughn Brennan]

Yes—at Botler's direction.

Thank you.

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

Ultimately, they have to give you direction, but you created the letter, did you not?

[Vaughn Brennan]

Based on Botler's requirements and requests, yes.

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

You drafted it. It went back and forth. Finally, you and Botler settled on a final version. You gave Botler all the email details. Botler sent it off. Is that correct?

[Vaughn Brennan]

At Botler's direction, yes, I provided a draft, if you will. I also went into GEDS and pulled down an email address, yes.

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

We're making progress now.

Is that time? It is, unfortunately.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mr. Powlowski, you have five minutes, please.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Sir, I wanted to follow up on a question from Mr. Brock earlier, not in this round but in the round before. He quotes you as saying, in the Bill Curry article in The Globe and Mail, which I looked for but couldn't find, “I did not and do not have any contacts [in] the Liberal government”. Then, Mr. Brock alleges, your comments today are not consistent with that.

Now, if I heard you right, you said that you looked on your phone and you had three ADMs, and two of them are no longer in government. I don't see that as inconsistent with your statement that you don't have contacts with the Liberal government. ADMs are members of the bureaucracy. They're not associated with the Liberal Party or elected members. Am I wrong on that? I just wanted to clarify that.

[Vaughn Brennan]

Your clarification is correct. I do not have any of those relations.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Okay.

Mr. Johns mentioned someone within Defence. Again, that's not someone who is associated with an elected party.

[Vaughn Brennan]

No. This is an administrator, an executive assistant, if you will, somebody who had spent their career at National Defence. She's a wonderful person. I just can't remember her name right now. She's the mother of a friend of mine.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Well, I personally can't see any smoking guns involving you.

I wanted to ask you this, because you described yourself as a business architect and somebody who looks at and is expert in government resource management. As far as I can see, one of the accusations from the opposition with respect to this whole matter is this contractual chain of command. CBSA contracted with GC Strategies, who in turn contracted with Botler AI, who in turn contracted with you. One of the accusations was toward GC Strategies, the initial contractor who subcontracts. They get so much money for basically doing what? That's the accusation—that this is a really inefficient system, that they take money for basically doing nothing. Certainly, we've had some response from various people who say, no, that's not the case.

You mentioned yourself the difficulty of contracting with governments, per se, and the amount of time it takes. Can you just lay out for the Canadian public what you think is the value added from companies like GC Strategies, who in turn subcontract? Is this a big waste of our taxpayer money?