Evidence of meeting #134 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 cbsa.
A recording is available from Parliament.
As an Individual
I received an email from the special investigations unit of PSPC on March 13, and I was told I was under administration leave. This was from my former director general, Lysane Bolduc. I would be happy to provide the committee with a copy of that.
Liberal
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
All right.
Looking now at your interactions with Kristian Firth, do you recall when the first time you came into contact with him was?
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
When was the first time you met, and what was the meeting pertaining to?
As an Individual
First of all, there would be.... I'd never met the man personally that I can recall. I don't remember meeting him, but this was in the time period of COVID. We were given instructions, as I was told, to see whether or not it was possible to put a sole-source contract to address some sort of software requirement at the time. I remember getting something from Mr. Firth regarding rates—a rate card—but as I said to him, it would have to go through PSPC's appropriate commodity team, called TBIPS, in order to be able to do anything. I advised the CBSA IT group that everything has to go through CBSA procurement and then PSPC's TBIPS. Angela Durigan—and again, I have a copy of this email—said she would have to check and see whether GC Strategies was on the pre-qualified list. They were. I have no access to that, so for me, that was the first I'd ever heard of GC Strategies. It was through Angela Durigan.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
Mr. Firth has provided testimony that he met with you prior to the contract being awarded to GC Strategies. During that meeting, he provided three suggestions for requirements for the contract, which ended up having 220 requirements.
Do you agree with that statement?
As an Individual
I do not recall—and I'll keep going back to what I said—any conversation on IT technical requirements from Mr. Firth. If Mr. Firth had given me anything, it would have been forwarded on to the IT department, which sets the technical requirements.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
Okay.
Getting back to your leave, is it medical leave that you're on now or just—
As an Individual
No. It is administrative leave, and that comes as a result of my former director general, Lysane Bolduc.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
Thanks for clarifying that for us.
Because this is the public accounts committee, I want to get back to the AG's report on ArriveCAN.
You said you read the report. Do you agree with her findings and recommendations?
As an Individual
Absolutely. That's why I go back to the October 2020 answer in the OPO report from November 2021, which states the CBSA has a contract review board. In the contract review board, they are supposed to review the impact to the agency. That would mean planning for projects and planning for finance. That would mean more than one cost centre would be set up. Does that make sense?
Liberal
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
You weren't.
In reviewing the report, can you outline any things that you might have found concerning?
As an Individual
I don't know if the AG has received all documentation related, such as what I found on Reddit, the 2022 information about CBSA's presentation to the committees, the answered questions, and things like, “Well, my office made the decision to go with GC Strategies.”
This was a public servant and as a unionized employee they were very concerned about this. The public service should be very concerned that its management team, who makes decisions and then tries to blame unionized members at a lower level for decisions made at the highest level, is a real threat. It's a real reprisal, and I'm a walking example of that.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Thank you very much, Ms. Daly.
That is the time. That ends the second round.
I'm going to suspend for 10 minutes, and we'll come right back.
Thank you.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
I bring the hearing back to order.
Mr. Brock, you have the floor for five minutes.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Ms. Daly, I want to do a deeper dive into the circumstances surrounding the CBSA interview. You referenced an audio tape that you're going to provide to the committee.
I understand there was a series of email exchanges as well, which you've referenced. These email exchanges involve you and who else?
As an Individual
I have them here. Can I pull them out? Then I'd be more accurate.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
I want you to ultimately file all of those emails. Can you just identify the names of the people who were communicating with you?
As an Individual
The people communicating with me were my director general, Lysane Bolduc, and Tom von Schoenberg, my senior director.
Those were the people involved in communicating—
As an Individual
You're correct, Mr. Brock.
On December 7, he sent me an invite for an optional...as a witness to come—