Evidence of meeting #122 for Public Accounts in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was documents.
A video is available from Parliament.
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Kristian Firth and Darren Anthony are not programmers, but the people who—
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Are you proud of doing business with these grifters instead of properly funding frontline border services officers?
11:15 a.m.
As an Individual
There was no choice at the time but to use this procurement vehicle.
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
It's a failure of leadership.
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Thank you very much.
Mr. Drouin, you have the floor for five minutes.
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Ossowski, for being here.
I certainly don't want to comment on PwC. It is a respectable firm that has done business with the Government of Canada under red leadership and under blue leadership. I think it's unfair the way we or certain members are treating your relationship with PwC. It has nothing to do with the issue at hand.
I want to go back to the early days of the pandemic, when the CBSA was seized with borders that were closed. What was the rationale and the thinking when the borders were closed? Were you able to predict everything that was going to happen when the border was closed?
11:15 a.m.
As an Individual
It is a profoundly complicated and blunt process to shut down the border. As you may recall at some point in the beginning of the pandemic, only Canadian citizens were allowed to return home. I had border service officers who were married to U.S. border service officers, in fact, who could not go back home or could not come across with their family members, because they were not Canadian citizens. This was very hard at a personal level for everyone involved in terms of—for lack of better words—the rough justice that was required to manage and contain the spread of the virus.
We did the best we could. We had established criteria. We had to make adjustments all the time. I had a full-time 24-7 border operations centre trying to apply judgment in tricky situations that could not have been anticipated. It was incredibly complicated and stressful. I am proud of the way the agency responded in that, because it was hard on everyone, but, at the end of the day, it was the right thing to do.
11:20 a.m.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
I recall even truck drivers weren't sure at the time whether or not they were insured if they were crossing the border for commercial purposes. I had several chats with constituents at the time.
I want to go back to developing the app, an app that there was no time to test properly, to release slowly to the public. I don't know if you have general experience in developing an application, but a lot of accusations have been made about how the app should have cost only $84,000. I'm just wondering.... With other applications across the IT space, there are hosting costs. The more customers or the more clients sign on, the more it costs. Can you elaborate on that?
11:20 a.m.
As an Individual
People often refer to the fact that it blew past its $80,000 budget. There was no budget. The $80,000 was what they estimated was the cost of the first release of the app. The Auditor General has said there were 177 versions of the app. Each of those apps required incredible efforts to put together. It required cloud service access to support it. It required security work to be done to it. It required a call centre for people to access. It required a web-based version. It had to go through the app stores to be vetted before it was released. The time frames were incredibly tight. The user testing was not always able to be done in time.
Obviously, there was one big error, which involved putting folks into quarantine who should not have been put into quarantine, and we apologized for that. But this was a very sophisticated tool, and I've seen no credible evidence from any witness to say that they could have done it much less expensively than was done, notwithstanding the procurement issues at play. This was a very complicated app. There were many, many different versions, which were not able to be predicted in advance. We were always playing catch-up, quite frankly, to see what the art of the possible was for what the Public Health Agency needed to do to manage the virus properly.
11:20 a.m.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Just for the record again, you had no direct involvement in signing the ArriveCAN contract at all?
11:20 a.m.
As an Individual
I was not involved in the contracting process in any way, shape or form.
11:20 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Thank you very much.
Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.
11:20 a.m.
Bloc
Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné Bloc Terrebonne, QC
Mr. Ossowski, don't worry. If I disagree with your comments, I won't insult you, unlike some.
I'd like to ask you a final question. Had you known that employees or public servants reporting to you had taken part in whisky tastings, dinners at restaurants, golf tournaments or similar events with consultants, what would you have done? Would you have dismissed them, for example, particularly if they had failed to report the events?
11:20 a.m.
As an Individual
If, in fact, it had been brought to my attention, there would likely have been an investigation. If wrongdoing had been found to have happened, there are a range of penalties that could have been applied to the person.
11:20 a.m.
Bloc
Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné Bloc Terrebonne, QC
Given what we know, do you believe it's wrong to participate in that kind of event without reporting it, and to accept gifts such as expensive whisky tastings? You're not going to tell me now that this didn't constitute wrongdoing. I think a dismissal, or at least a suspension, was in order, don't you?
11:20 a.m.
As an Individual
The code of conduct is very clear on this. If an employee receives an offer, they're supposed to report it—
11:20 a.m.
Bloc
11:20 a.m.
Bloc
Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné Bloc Terrebonne, QC
Right.
I'll ask you the same question again. What would your decision have been?
11:25 a.m.
As an Individual
If one of my direct reports had said they'd received an offer such as this, I would have hoped they had turned it down. If they had not, we would have had further inquiries.
11:25 a.m.
Bloc
Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné Bloc Terrebonne, QC
So you're refusing to answer the question. Understood.
You're appearing here as an individual. You're refusing to answer the question, which is quite mind‑blowing, since you were the CBSA president when public servants did this. You now have the chance to say that, had you known, you would have taken serious action, including dismissing those employees. It's really unfortunate that you're refusing to answer that question.
You're appearing here as an individual. On Tuesday, we learned that some employees who attended these events were still working at the CBSA. Not only are they still working there, but they haven't faced any consequences and they have even been promoted. Do you believe that this is normal? I'd like a clear answer, please.
11:25 a.m.
As an Individual
I did answer the question. There is a code of conduct. Employees are to report offers of hospitality like this. If they have not done so, it needs to be investigated and they need to be reprimanded.
11:25 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Thank you.
Mr. Cannings, it's nice to see you, sir. You have the floor for two and a half minutes, please.