Public Accounts Committee on April 3rd, 2024

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Sir, there's been a process undertaken. This information is obviously at hand. Can you confirm that information and provide it to this committee by the close of business today?

[Jonathan Moor]

I'll have to go back to the department to see if they have that—

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Could you endeavour to do that by the close of business today?

[Jonathan Moor]

I'll have to go back to the department and talk to the DG who is responsible for this.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Your non-answers are frankly surprising.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Let me just interject here. I appreciate that the information will be forthcoming as soon as possible.

Mr. Nater, the committee does allow for some time. I appreciate your determination to get to the bottom of this.

Mr. Moor, if you're able to do that as soon as possible, that would be wonderful. We will reach out at some point.

Mr. Nater, it's back to you for a minute and 20 seconds.

[Jonathan Moor]

There may also be some privacy impacts, which I can't comment on.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Again, privacy is not an issue. As you well know, sir, Parliament and this committee can compel information from witnesses to any degree. Privacy and any of those issues are not impediments to providing information to this committee. You as a senior public servant ought to know the power of committees to call for information and documents.

On a different matter, three information technology contractors were found to have fraudulently billed for contract work with several departments between 2018 and 2022. These payments were estimated to be nearly $5 million.

You were asked this question by my colleague Mr. Brock in a previous committee. Can you now confirm whether any of those firms did work with the Canada Border Services Agency?

[Jonathan Moor]

As I said at a previous committee appearance, Public Services and Procurement Canada informed us that the CBSA was involved, and the involvement was estimated at up to $15,000. They have not come back and given us the details yet.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

When do you expect that information to be forthcoming?

[Jonathan Moor]

I'll have to go back to PSPC and ask them.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

That's basically the exact same answer you gave a week and a half ago.

[Jonathan Moor]

We have had the Easter period in between.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Yes. We did have two days that were—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

You have 10 seconds, Mr. Nater.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

—statutory holidays.

Chair, I will just conclude by saying that I look forward to that information on double-dipping coming to this committee as expeditiously as possible, because it is a concern for many Canadians.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you, Mr. Nater.

Our last member is Mrs. Shanahan.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I want to say again how much I appreciate the witnesses being here today and making themselves available to us.

In my last line of questioning, we established that there indeed is enduring value to ArriveCAN. The original purpose was to offset the paper-based cost of dealing with people filling out forms and so on. I can just imagine the inefficiency of that system. What I'd like to know now, though, is what went wrong with the procurement of the ArriveCAN app.

Mr. Moor, you're familiar with the procurement ombud, who wrote a detailed report regarding the procurement of ArriveCAN.

[Jonathan Moor]

Yes, absolutely. I really welcome the procurement ombud's report and also the OAG's report. We have learned an awful lot around the procurement, and as I have said before, we definitely made some mistakes on procurement and have learned those lessons.

I think the comptroller general at a recent committee appearance said that now is the time to move on and make sure the recommendations are implemented and that the organization has the time to implement the recommendations to ensure this does not happen again. However, I would also say that we should always go back four years and think about the atmosphere of the pandemic.

It was a very difficult atmosphere. Personally, I had to have a letter from the CBSA president to attend the office during that period, even though I was operating at an operational level. We had the relocation of all individuals back to their home environments, which they had never worked in before. We had the border, which was being significantly challenged. I think people need to have a look at the context around this period of time, and the Auditor General did recognize the context at the time.

I accept that we made mistakes. We have learned from those mistakes. We are implementing actions from those mistakes, but we also need to recognize that some of those mistakes may well have occurred because of the pandemic conditions.

Also, we're looking to see if there was any wrongdoing. If there was any wrongdoing, I can guarantee you action will be taken, but we really need to allow the RCMP and the internal investigations to conclude and find out whether any of these accusations are founded. If they are founded, action will be addressed.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you for that.

I would go a step further and say that during the height of the pandemic emergency, when we did not even know the nature of COVID-19, whether we could have a vaccine and what kind of protection we could have in order to simply continue as a society from day to day, there were those who took advantage of the emergency situation and the fact that people were working from home and their services were needed. We talked about staff augmentation. We needed specialized services to provide that digitized application.

I'm thinking of the ombud's recommendation 3 concerning the “Replacement of Specific Individuals” clause in contracting. The procurement ombud was very clear about the bait and switch strategy used by contractors who were taking advantage of the emergency situation at the time. Can you comment on that?

[Jonathan Moor]

I think there is a risk that some contractors took advantage of that, but I also think that clause is different for different purposes. For a staff augmentation contract, it is highly likely that an individual will not be available at the time the contractor is required. I think it is different when we're talking about a supply arrangement where there's a defined product. In that case, we would expect the people who have been put into the RFP to be attending to and doing the work.

I think there are different types of contracting and different explanations around that.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Regarding some of these preferred contractors, they were not only involved in setting the criteria by which they would bid on the contract; they were also using subcontractors. I'm thinking of Dalian and Mr. David Yeo. He told this committee he was very happy to provide the service of access to government contracts, because he was indigenous and they were able to access the indigenous set-aside that all government agencies have.

How would you comment on that?

[Jonathan Moor]

That is subject to review by CIRNAC. I don't think that's right. I think if you're there to provide opportunities for indigenous people, they should be provided.

My understanding is that under those contracts, 33% of the total contract value needs to be provided by indigenous people. I would look to CIRNAC to make sure that's happening.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you.

I have a question for the chair. We asked Mr. Yeo to provide his Conservative donor card documents to this committee. Have we received them yet?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I don't know. You're welcome to send a note to the clerk and find out what information Mr. Yeo has provided.

Mrs. Shanahan, you seem intent on this card. I will remind you, all members and the audience watching that those cards are sent out even before people donate. I wouldn't read too much into it, but we will of course endeavour to follow up on all documents that have been promised to this committee and report that information to committee members.

Thank you, members of the Office of the Auditor General, for coming today, along with members of the Canada Border Services Agency. We appreciate you being here. We also appreciate your patience with us. I know we've run a bit over time, but I thank you for your time today.

To wrap things up, I'll note that a working calendar was sent out to members this morning. I worked with Ms. Yip—actually, all members of the subcommittee—and we're going to factor in some time at the end of the meeting on Tuesday to review the subcommittee's work to date.

Also, to the next point, I previously requested witnesses for the ArriveCAN study, and I neglected to put a date on that. I will do so right now, and the clerk will send it out again today. It's one week from today for any witnesses members might want for the ArriveCAN study.

Of course, it is my intention to abide by every motion that is passed by this committee. I see no issues with the motion that was passed today. It will just mean working through and communicating clearly on deadlines.

I'm going to refer you all to House of Commons Procedure and Practice, chapter 20, regarding the convening of meetings. I don't want today's motion to be misunderstood. Chapter 20 says that meetings are called through a decision of the chair or through the chair's authority, which is demonstrated across the parliamentary precinct. Of course, I look forward to working with all members as we continue to study ArriveCAN and as we agree together on witnesses going forward.

I will see you all back here tomorrow.

Without further ado, I adjourn this meeting.