Evidence of meeting #126 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 kpmg.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
Did you have any previous dealings with those individuals at the comptroller general's office while you were a public servant?
Partner, Cybersecurity, KPMG
When it comes to dealings.... I didn't work with them on a regular basis. I certainly would have passed by them in the hall and said hello, but no, we didn't have any work regularly, given that I was in the office of the chief information officer and they were in a completely separate branch.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
I only have a few seconds left, but I want to go back.
You mentioned that you would have briefed your manager, but you don't know how you did it.
Could you commit to coming back to this committee with a confirmation of how you briefed your manager and who you would have briefed, whether it was Mr. Brouillard or others? As well, can you provide any documentation to this committee on how you briefed your supervisors following your meetings with GC Strategies?
Partner, Cybersecurity, KPMG
I'll certainly do what I can. I hope the committee understands and respects that I don't have access to my former inbox at Treasury Board, so I can't provide the records themselves. I can certainly do my best to summarize what I recall.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
If you could do that.... If you get a response, that's great. If you find the department does not allow you access to your records, we will take that into consideration as well.
Thank you.
Ms. Yip, you have the last five-minute round. We'll turn it over to you.
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Thank you, Chair.
I'm sorry to hear that Mr. Nater is not interested in looking at the misuse of public funds when it's his own members doing it.
Mr. Bernard, how long have you been doing business with the Government of Canada?
Chief Executive Officer, Donna Cona Inc.
Do you mean after I resigned? It's been since 1990.
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
How large were these contracts, relative to the work that your organization had normally done?
Chief Executive Officer, Donna Cona Inc.
They started off small, and they just grew over time as we grew.
Liberal
Director, Canadian Government Services, TEKsystems
Thank you for the question.
For clarification, what are you asking?
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
How long has TEKsystems been doing business with the Government of Canada?
Director, Canadian Government Services, TEKsystems
TEKsystems has been working with the federal government since 2015.
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
How large were these contracts relative to the work you normally do?
Director, Canadian Government Services, TEKsystems
The contracts vary in size, but we have several different contracts of various values with the federal government. Some are for $300,000, but our agreements with CBSA, for example, were for $15 million and $7 million, respectively.
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
All right.
Ms. Lee, do you want to finish your answer? I believe Mr. Brock was asking a question, and you weren't given an opportunity to finish your answer. Do you still want to answer that?
Partner and National Leader, Digital Health Transformation Practice, KPMG
Thank you very much for allowing me to finish my comment.
I was simply trying to respond to Mr. Brock's question regarding the processes around how we review whether or not we can engage in work with a particular organization, contractor or subcontractor. I was just trying to finish the statement that we do have processes whereby we check clients and we check the nature of the engagement we're being asked to undertake. For all of our public sector engagements, we have three partners who actually have to sign off on something before we're allowed to proceed: the engagement lead partner, a secondary partner who is responsible for looking after the engagement-specific process questions and then another quality partner.
I simply wanted to say that our processes are incredibly rigorous. They're very detailed. They are reliant on point-in-time information, and our systems continuously update based on current information as things evolve. That's what I wanted to finish.
Thank you.
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Okay. Do you believe your company gave good value for the work that was done?
Partner and National Leader, Digital Health Transformation Practice, KPMG
As I said before, we are very proud of the work we fulfilled for the government, for both the Public Health Agency and CBSA, during an incredibly stressful time during the pandemic.
We do believe the work we did fulfilled roles the government itself could not play within the required time. Therefore, yes, I do think we added tremendous value in the work we provided for the Government of Canada.
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Mr. Bashir, looking back on everything that's happened, would you have done anything differently?
Partner, Cybersecurity, KPMG
Thank you for the question.
I echo my colleague's comments about how proud we are of having done that job. If CBSA required cybersecurity assistance to ensure the continued protection of Canadians' information, that is right up our alley, and we would do that type of work again.
Going back to what Ms. Lee said, I wouldn't have done anything differently in the sense that we went through the processes we were supposed to go through. The Government of Canada had repeatedly validated GC Strategies as a vendor of choice of record and had awarded, I believe, over 100 contracts since 2015. Given that information, there are no differences to my answer.
Knowing what we know today and knowing that some adverse information has come up with regard to that company, I don't suppose we'd do work with them going forward. However, I want to echo again that, if a Government of Canada organization required cybersecurity support, we would be there, absolutely.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
You have about five seconds, so time for a very quick question.
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Okay.
Is there anything either of you would do differently?
Conservative