Good afternoon.
When I appeared before the committee in October, I talked about the internal investigation that I initiated following receipt of allegations of misconduct and the referral made to the RCMP.
On December 19, I received a preliminary statement of fact from the internal CBSA investigation. A preliminary statement of fact is not a conclusion and does not reflect all of the information, including from respondents; it's relevant documentary evidence collected to date in the course of an investigation.
As laid out in my correspondence to you, these packages contained documents that fit the parameters of material that you requested in October. As such, they were translated and provided to you.
The emails that you were provided are also relevant to testimony you received in previous meetings. Specifically, they show that the Botler chatbot was not the result of an unsolicited proposal and that there was a pattern of persistent collaboration between certain officials and GC Strategies. They show efforts to circumvent or ignore established procurement processes and roles and responsibilities.
I need to say at this point that the investigation remains ongoing. Ideally, it will be further informed by information and interviews from key individuals who have been requested to speak to the investigators. I am trying to balance my knowledge of information that you have been seeking against the integrity of the investigation or, in other words, I am trying to respect both due process and Parliament.
Public servants and the employees of the CBSA need to have confidence in our disciplinary processes and the internal investigations that support them. Parliamentarians should know if information that is provided to them is unsupported by facts.
The conclusion of our work internally will provide the clarity we need to formulate more comprehensive and further actions going forward, if necessary.
As I testified at my previous appearance, I have already implemented changes in how the agency manages and oversees procurement. Better controls and oversight have been put in place, including having those with procurement authority in headquarters retake their training, having a senior committee review every task authorization and centralizing procurement responsibilities within the organization. These controls will be calibrated over time and with a fuller understanding of what happened and why.
They will be informed by upcoming audits of the Auditor General and the procurement ombudsman. They will also be informed by the internal review that is ongoing with respect to contracts and documents associated with ArriveCAN.
I would like to assure you that my team is working full out to provide you as quickly as possible with the over 30,000 pages of information that you have requested from the CBSA in the course of your study.
We have provided six packages of translated records. Translation on the remaining material is ongoing. I will continue to send bilingual packages as they are completed.
In closing, while we still don’t know everything, what we know is not okay. I am concerned and I want to get to the bottom of it. I must emphasize how critical it is that the CBSA maintains the confidence of Canadians as we carry out our important mandate.
The situation should in no way dishonour the dedicated employees and frontline border service officers across the country and around the world serving Canadians day in, day out, with professionalism and integrity. I am focused on not letting that happen.