Public Accounts Committee on April 3rd, 2024

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

You think it is normal to grant—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you, Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné. I'm sorry, but your time is up.

We go now to Mr. Desjarlais, who is joining us virtually.

You have the floor for six minutes. Go ahead, please, Mr. Desjarlais.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for being present with us today.

It is a troubling fact that ArriveCAN has cost Canadians millions and millions of dollars while we're experiencing a cost of living crisis. Canadians, whether they're paying rent or just trying to pay their bills, are seeing things get more expensive. At the same time, it's troubling that their government, seemingly without care or oversight, is spending on expensive and extreme outsourced contracts. This is, I think, the crux of my concern, and one that I'll focus on in my questions to the witnesses.

We know, for example, from statements from the union representatives at the CBSA, that there is a double crisis happening right now. There's the crisis of the dramatic underfunding of our public service, which has created a vulnerability. CBSA has been forced, in some sense, to outsource, looking for the expertise they don't have.

The other problem is that when CBSA is given that longer leash, it seems as though things get way out of hand. We've seen multiple breaches of very, very basic levels of accounting and reporting, and, I'd argue, of basic ethics in disclosure of facts of when or how or if there was influence by private contractors and preferred access to private contractors, particularly when we look at the evidence that the Auditor General has found.

I want to look at the finding in paragraph 1.28 of the report:

The Canada Border Services Agency determined that it would need to rely on external resources to develop the web-based and mobile application because it did not have sufficient internal capacity with the skills needed.

We know that as early as 2006, there was a rapid increase in outsourced contracts by the Government of Canada. We can see it in, for example, the Phoenix pay system. The government gives a contract, and it gets out of control. These private contractors then endlessly bill the taxpayer for, in this case, even task authorizations that were not completed. Basic levels of trust, I think, were breached here.

In addition, we see in paragraph 1.29 that the Auditor General found the following:

We found that as time went on, the agency continued to rely heavily on external resources (Exhibit 1.2). Reduced reliance on external resources would have decreased the total cost of the application and enhanced value for money.

This is, I think, the most important piece to some of this work—to know that when they could have reassessed some of the task authorizations, even if the task authorizations had information relevant to what they were doing or who was doing it, there would have been an opportunity to reduce the overall cost of some of this work. You can look, for example, at that exhibit submitted by the Auditor General's office and at the tremendous cost this bears against the public.

I think it's now incredibly important that the checks and balances you mentioned at the outset of your testimony, Mr. Moor, aren't only listened to today in this committee but are also actually enforced.

I often find in this committee that we have officials like you. In this particular instance, we see a massive breach of public trust. In the attempt to rebuild that public trust, there are often words and recommendations put forward by the Auditor General. What I find troubling is that sometimes these recommendations don't fully meet their target or are not enforced.

That's troubling for me. I'll be requesting at the end of our meeting that we investigate follow-up opportunities from your appearance here and follow up on the enforcement of recommendations. The enforcement aspect is important to me, because it has to change. This just can't continue the way it has. I'm nervous that this could be going on in other ministries or even continuing in your ministry if we don't continue to see some of these checks and balances properly addressed and fully implemented.

It's true that we know that the CBSA, as you just mentioned, Mr. Moor, was approached by Public Services and Procurement Canada during the second contract, when they reviewed the first set of contracts and determined that they were insufficient for the purposes of being competitive, because of their non-competitive nature, and recommended a competitive process.

Is it the case that your letter that you just submitted, or that you admitted was signed in May of 2020, was your response to the initial inquiry by Public Services and Procurement Canada?

[Jonathan Moor]

Actually, I signed the national security exemption on June 1, 2020. It was not in response, because those comments received from PSPC were sent directly to the information, science and technology branch and did not come to the CFO's branch, so we were not aware of any of that feedback from PSPC. At the time, it was being sent to the border technologies innovation directorate.

In terms of—

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Considering that PSPC understood the nature of how non-competitive contracts could be abused, why is it that you weren't able to do such a thing?

[Jonathan Moor]

We were not aware. We were only aware of that during these inquiries.

At the time, they were engaging directly with the information, science and technology branch. That has now been stopped. One part of our procurement improvement plan is that all contracting has to go through our procurement directorate, which is within the comptrollership branch.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Why wasn't that the case prior to this, and for so long?

[Jonathan Moor]

I think it was because we had reliance on our other government partners, especially during a very busy time for all of us. As I said previously in my introductory remarks, for over 30 of the contracts for ArriveCAN, the contract authority was actually PSPC. There is a service-level agreement between CBSA and PSPC, which sets out the requirements of CBSA as the technical authority and PSPC as the contract authority.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

That is your time, Mr. Desjarlais. We will call you back shortly.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

We are beginning our second round.

Mr. Barrett, you have the floor for five minutes, please.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Mr. Vleeming, on GC Strategies' now deleted website, they had a number of testimonials from senior government officials. In one case, the Government of Canada's chief information officer was quoted as saying, “GC Strategies understands our needs on a business and technical level”. Who would have said that?

[Darryl Vleeming, Vice-President and Chief Information Officer, Canada Border Services Agency]

Thank you for the question.

I've only been at CBSA for 11 months. I was not CIO at the time. Prior to me, Minh Doan was CIO, for the last five years.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Has anyone asked Mr. Doan if that was him?

[Darryl Vleeming]

I am not aware of that.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Who else could it have been? We've established that it wasn't you.

[Darryl Vleeming]

If the reference was specifically to the chief information officer of the CBSA in the last five years, that would have been Minh Doan.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Okay, but it wasn't you who said it.

[Darryl Vleeming]

That's correct.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Are you aware that it was said—

[Darryl Vleeming]

I am not aware that it was said.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

—or was alleged to have been said? You're not familiar...?

[Darryl Vleeming]

All I've heard is the testimony in committees referencing that certain testimony was on the GC Strategies website.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Did it cause you concern that the endorsement had been offered by the CIO?

[Darryl Vleeming]

It surprised me, as you wouldn't typically see that, at least in my experience.