Evidence of meeting #89 for National Defence in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was data.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
They encrypted it so you couldn't even access your own files. They not only copied the data, but also encrypted it so you guys couldn't get back into the system.
President, Global Relocation, Sirva Worldwide, Inc.
They encrypted a number of our systems, not all of them.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Based upon the data that's there.... You said they're still reviewing it, but it's been three months. You said they copied the data. You said that no ransom has been paid. Can you tell us whether these bad actors are adversarial foreign states, or if it is more into the illegal crime organizations that are out there doing these hacks?
President, Global Relocation, Sirva Worldwide, Inc.
Everything—all the evidence and all the work we've done—points to this being a financially motivated bad actor; it was not a state-related actor.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Okay, so it's ransomware, and you didn't pay any ransom. They will then, of course, try to sell the copied data, which would be personal identity theft to generate any revenue. Is that right?
President, Global Relocation, Sirva Worldwide, Inc.
Presumably. Again, they're criminals, and I won't try to guess what their intentions were.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Knowing that you are handling data that is sensitive from the Canadian Armed Forces members, which includes everything from financial data to birthplaces, passport numbers and potentially security clearance information, especially for the higher-level officers you are moving, do you believe you have a liability issue here to those individuals, as well as to the Canadian Armed Forces and the Government of Canada?
President, Global Relocation, Sirva Worldwide, Inc.
As I said, we regret that this incident took place, and we are committed to supporting any individuals who have been impacted by it.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Thank you for your testimony.
Mr. Chair, with the final 30 seconds I have, I'd like to resume debate on my motion that was adjourned on Monday, January 29.
I so move.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
It's a dilatory motion.
(Motion negatived: nays 6; yeas 5)
We will continue on with the final five minutes.
Mr. Fisher, you have five minutes, please.
January 31st, 2024 / 6:40 p.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Olmsted, I want to thank you for being here. I want to thank you for being so patient with the delay for the 10 votes that we had earlier. I really appreciate that. Sometimes that just happens around this place.
There have been some reasonably heavy questions asked of you today, but I'm going to ask you a question that's probably going to fit right into your wheelhouse.
I just don't have the absolute structure of what a successful transition looks like. With the remaining time, can you just walk us through the components of a successful transition? What factors make it successful, i.e., the speed, the time, the different cities, the virtual services, etc.? If you can, just walk us through that, and maybe even touch on.... Do you actually help find the home? Just break it down into pieces of what it looks like when it works.
President, Global Relocation, Sirva Worldwide, Inc.
The way a relocation with the Canadian Armed Forces and our services work is that we get in contact when the member is posted and knows they're moving. We work with them. We give them, as I said before, options on how they want to communicate with us, how much assistance they want from one of our counsellors and how much they want to do themselves on the member secure website.
The modernized delivery that's being used by the Canadian Armed Forces during this contract is really the model that other corporations around the globe are moving towards. The younger generation doesn't want to talk to people, so for us a success in that beginning is making sure that we understand what's important to the member, what their hot buttons are for this move and how they want to communicate with us.
We then do the briefing with them, or they do the briefing themselves online, and then we're available to answer their questions. They can come back to us at any time through chat, through email or through the phone. We will then give them a budget that shows them what the different components of a move should cost them. We then offer them an advance of funds so that they won't be out of pocket. We then give them the directory of local suppliers so that on both ends of the transaction—their departure and their destination—they have the suppliers they can pick from to use. They do that. They pay those suppliers. They arrange when the suppliers are coming to their home.
Outside of that process, a mover is given to us, which that particular transferring member should use. We communicate that to them, and they work with that mover. That mover could be a Sirva mover, because we are one of the providers who are in that contract also. We then work with the member throughout the process to make sure they're getting the support they need from those local suppliers, and then, when they are done with the move, we collect from them all the bills and receipts that support the monies they spent. We will reconcile that to any advances they received. If they have additional funds, we will give that to them. If they've been given more, and if they've been prudent and have not spent all of their advances, we then collect those funds back from them, as they are public funds and we can let them keep only what is supported through the move.
For us, a successful move is that someone goes through that process in a time frame that they laid out in the beginning of the move; that we've supported them and their spouse in the way they talked about or communicated at the beginning of the move; and that there were no significant issues that slowed down or disrupted the process for them.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you, Mr. Fisher.
That brings our time to a close, Mr. Olmsted, but before I release you, just arising out of Mr. Bezan's questions, do you have any evidence that any of the information is being shopped on the dark web?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Okay. Thank you.
Colleagues, that does bring us to an end.
For Monday, we have the ombudsman confirmed, and the military family centres that are invited not confirmed.
I would like to use part of Monday to just scope out where we're going. I also need some advice for our travel submission, which is due on February 16, on what people would like to do. I know that Mr. Fillmore wants to take his space study down to NASA to get it launched, so to speak. That's really the clerk's joke. I stole it from him.
The Latvian defence minister and foreign affairs committee chair, whom we saw when we were in Latvia, will be visiting Ottawa from May 27 to 31. We're working on the assumption that the committee would like to meet with them.
Minister Blair is also confirmed for a week from today. It's the transparency study.
Again, thank you, Mr. Olmsted, for your patience. We appreciate your testimony.
The meeting is adjourned.