Public Accounts Committee on May 30th, 2024

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

I'm sure it did make the procurement process easier, because it skips the procurement process.

Did it have anything to do with ease of contracting and cash flow? Was that one of the reasons?

[Imraan Bashir]

It's hard to speculate. It's probably a question better directed to the CBSA, to be honest.

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

What did Mr. Utano tell you about GC Strategies? Had you worked with Antonio Utano prior to this ArriveCAN engagement?

[Imraan Bashir]

I'd never worked with Mr. Utano prior to the engagement. I likely crossed paths with him in my time in government at a government event, but I don't recall ever working with him on anything.

To answer the first part of your question, the way it came up was that we discussed the proposal, and he seemed happy with what he saw and suggested that I pass that along to Mr. Firth afterwards.

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

Did it seem normal to you that you'd be directed to submit a proposal to a subcontractor when you were submitting a proposal directly to the federal government? Is that the normal way that you do business?

[Imraan Bashir]

The way that I characterize procurement is that there are essentially three steps to it. Step one is to identify what you want to procure. The second step is to identify the vehicle by which you would procure it. The third one is to procure it.

Having completed the first step of establishing what it was that he wanted to procure, my understanding was that Mr. Utano was simply exploring the options he had. One of the other options he had was the CEPS vehicle, which my colleague Lydia discussed last time. As my other colleague, Hartaj, mentioned, we would have happily competed for it had he wanted to put it out to a full tender as well.

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

As someone who previously worked for the public service and as a taxpayer, do you find it strange that the Government of Canada asked a company the size of KPMG—11,000 employees I think you said in your opening—to subcontract through two guys who are obviously taking a percentage of the total contract amount? KPMG said how much it was going to cost them to do it, and we know they were adding up to 30% on top of that.

Would you advise clients to follow that method, or would you advise them to procure the services directly from the vendor?

[Imraan Bashir]

Obviously, we'd prefer direct procurement where possible, for sure. I can't begin to speculate on the reasons CBSA may have wanted to go that particular route.

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

Do you know of any other instances where this type of direction was given to KPMG or another company to work through GC Strategies or another third party instead of offering their services directly to the government, to CBSA?

[Imraan Bashir]

To my knowledge, no, but I know KPMG as a firm, as I believe we submitted in writing as well, has subcontracted for—don't quote me on this; I don't have it in front of me—I believe 13 different companies of varying sizes, from very large organizations to small. The key there is that where we can help provide expertise specifically to the government in areas that we are good at and can provide value for taxpayers, we will entertain that, yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you. I appreciate that answer.

I think it's obvious, but I'll note that you are being quoted here. If you discover after the fact that the information is a little off, let us know, because this is a Parliament Hill House of Commons committee.

I appreciate your turn of phrase “don't quote me on this”, but you are being quoted for the official record. I take that in the spirit it was given in your comment.

Ms. Khalid, you have the floor for six minutes, please.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

I'll start by outlining the role of the public accounts committee. It is to hold to account how tax dollars are spent across the country—for what purposes and whether or not they are justifiable within the reports of the Auditor General and how departments function.

I know that things become very politicized as they progress, and ArriveCAN is one of those things. I am not questioning the quality of the app, although in the Auditor General's report there were some challenges. What I am questioning today from all of you is how these dollars were spent, which we can't really get to the bottom of. I think we owe it to Canadians to ensure that we understand and ultimately improve the process for how contracting happens and how the Lobbying Act and the conflict of interest code ensure that there is accountability in how tax dollars are spent.

Perhaps I'll start with Mr. Bashir, if that's okay.

You have worked in various different departments within the federal government and now you are working for KPMG. Can you help us outline how the Lobbying Act applies to you and how the conflict of interest code has applied to you in your new role, having all of the experience you have within the bureaucracy of government and having built a network of relationships?

[Imraan Bashir]

Given the position that I held in the federal public service, I was subject to the Treasury Board directive on conflict of interest, as most are. I believe they term them positions designated to be high risk for conflict of interest.

What that directive states—and this is the process that I followed upon my departure—is that upon receipt of an offer of employment.... I should say that I did this way earlier than having the offer of employment. When I began thinking about getting an opportunity, I engaged with my values and ethics team immediately, who coached me through the entire process. That involves a discussion with the senior management team and finally culminates in a formal letter from the deputy head outlining post-employment restrictions—some term it a “cool-off period”—upon a departure from the public service.

In my particular case, I was given a one-year post-deployment restriction that forbade me from soliciting work or even being named on a request for proposal response for the core federal public service. I have that letter. I took that letter to KPMG upon my start date there, and we established the appropriate protocols and ethical walls to ensure that I was completely removed from the federal practice for the entirety of the first year, at which time I worked on other things like provincial government, municipal and other contracts.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

I appreciate that. Thanks for sharing.

Do you feel that those checks and balances were sufficient? In a place like this, you make friends; you make connections. How can the Lobbying Act or the conflict of interest code be more efficient in ensuring that no undue access is given or no undue profit is made on the taxpayers' dime based on relationships that have been going on for decades?

[Imraan Bashir]

It's challenging, for sure. I think the directive does a very good job of outlining the requirements from all parties about the person in question and the organizations that need to subsequently follow that. I can't really comment on the oversight of that, as I've never been involved on the other side. I can say it's incumbent upon all parties involved—the departing organization, the new organization and the person involved—to ensure continuous compliance with these requirements.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you. I appreciate that, Mr. Bashir.

Mr. Bernard, I'm going to turn to you next.

How did Donna Cona and TEKsystems become engaged with the government on the development of ArriveCAN?

[John Bernard]

I'm sorry. Are you asking me how TEKsystems—

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

How did Donna Cona become engaged with the government on the ArriveCAN app?

[Barry Dowdall, President, Donna Cona Inc.]

I can take that, if you want.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Yes, please. Thank you.

[John Bernard]

Yes, I'll defer to you.

[Barry Dowdall]

We won three competitively produced RFPs for CBSA. We were providing resources. Nothing in our contract or in the task authorizations mentioned ArriveCAN, so we had a number of IT professionals, typically cloud people, who were working on it.

They were essentially building containers, for lack of a better term, on the AWS cloud to bring in data. They brought in some data, as John mentioned, from public health and other applications. They were building this infrastructure on the cloud to accept data from different sources.

We went through our time sheets when the AG report came out because we didn't have anything that said “ArriveCAN”. We looked through the activities, and that's how we found—

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

I'm so sorry. I'm going to stop you there.

My question, specifically, is this: When the proposal came out and the discussions were going on about developing this app, did you have conversations with any ministers, the Prime Minister, any political figures or any bureaucrats during the whole process?

[Barry Dowdall]

No. We competitively won the RFPs, and CBSA contacted us for an “as and when”.

[John Bernard]

I will add that I was quite surprised to see my company's name listed in the AG report.