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.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you, Ms. Daly, for appearing here today.
I will point out at the outset that we are not here as a tribunal to find charge or to find guilt in any way. We are trying to figure out what went wrong and how we can ensure that it doesn't go wrong again in the future.
Ms. Daly, I'll start off by asking who hired you.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Who will fire you, as you had indicated in your opening statement?
As an Individual
Who would fire me? Well, that would probably be my deputy minister or my former director general. You see, in the policy on investigations, it is actually, as I said in my statement, the at-level manager or director who needs to start an investigation. At Public Works, that would have been Lysane Bolduc at the time.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Right.
You also mentioned in your opening remarks that Minister Duclos, who was the minister responsible at the time, “tried to do the right thing”. Can you elaborate on that? What exactly did you mean by that?
As an Individual
I'm referring to what Ms. Reza said in one of her committee meetings. I'm not sure whether it was OGGO or public accounts. You'd have to look it up. I believe it was in January. She was asked a question specifically regarding when she had informed—I think it was Mrs. Block who asked this—the minister of the ArriveCAN thing. She said it was, like, October or November of 2023, when he started. He started in the summer. The same month, or a month later, he came out and said in The Globe and Mail, I believe, “We recognize there's a problem and we're trying to do something about it in the House of Commons.”
That's where I'm getting this information from.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Thank you.
Help me to understand this. From the over 20-plus meetings and the increased politicization of this issue, I'm getting the vibe that what's at issue here is how middle management is conducting themselves, especially during the COVID time, when things were very fluid and a lot of things needed to get done in a very short time. Do you think we need to micromanage our public service?
As an Individual
I think you need to take a good look at the TBIPS method of supply. In fact, look at it from an auditor's standpoint. I would suggest that the Auditor General actually go into the professional services unit and look at how....
TBIPS was established in the way forward in 2005, from what I read in a business journal that I have with me. It's an article from 2009, which says that TBIPS needs to be reformed. We need to look at what we put in place before and reform it.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
How much of what has happened here, which, if I'm going to put it into context, is there was too much money spent on an app to try to help people to be mobile during COVID in a safe way, and a lot of that led to overspending. Where do you think the accountability really lies with the spending of that money? We realize no ministers signed off on any of these contracts. Where is that accountability?
As an Individual
I go to the Financial Administration Act. Where does it come down from?
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Do you think that ministers need to sign off on every single contract in order for the public service, which we rely on significantly, to be able to do its work? Do ministers need to sign off on every single contract and micromanage how our public service does its work?
As an Individual
I think you need to take a look at what is obviously...this goes back to the OGGO meeting where PSPC's Madam Poulin had indicated there could be a widespread problem in the government with different departments impacted by the poor way that methods of supply are set up. It's the methods of supply.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Thanks for that.
It seems to me, based on your testimony today, that everyone in the public service seems to be tripping over themselves to find out who is the person most responsible. The Conservatives are trying to tie this in some way to a minister or to some political operative here.
From your point of view, do you think that the elected officials need to have more oversight on these contracts and procurement in general so that we can prevent these kinds of acts from happening in the future?
As an Individual
I'll tell you what I understood from Public Works. They, I believe, either have put in place a chief procurement officer.... Maybe that should be considered as an independent office not in finance, but working with finance as a separate entity. Part of this is your financial management system and people knowing what goes in and how it's done. We in the government love red tape. We don't do the how-to guides or this is the process of what this means. We don't do enough of that, yet we ask, through Treasury Board as the employer, for reports about what we're doing. We make it so hard on ourselves to deal with the simplest things when we could have oversight bodies watching what people are asking for.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
I have one more question, Chair, if you would oblige me.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Ms. Khalid, your time is up, but there are more slots coming for you and your members, so we'll come back. It did go well over, Ms. Khalid.
Ms. Sinclair-Desgagné, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné Bloc Terrebonne, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Daly did you threaten Ms. Dutt of Botler AI, on behalf of Canada, to get her to send all documents and evidence of misconduct in her possession to the Canada Border Services Agency or GC Strategies, yes or no?
As an Individual
No.
We asked for everything associated with the two deliverables because of the turnover in project representatives from the human resources branch. Part of the issue for Botler was that they were complaining there weren't people there to get the deliverables done. Let me be very clear. You could find that with documentation or emails, but what we did was to ask for everything associated as part of the terms and conditions laid out in 2035, part of the higher complexity template and the supply acquisitions clauses and conditions, where Canada has the right to audit and ask for those documents.
Bloc
Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné Bloc Terrebonne, QC
Why did you ask Botler AI to provide all the documents and all the evidence of misconduct in its possession, knowing that, normally, you should have sounded the alarm and reported the problem to your superior, who would ultimately have told Mr. Doan? Did anyone ask you to do that, or did you do it on your own?
As an Individual
First of all, I corresponded with Ms. Dutt through email. I had to do what she had requested. She was looking for my support to find out when the human resources branch...and the work to continue so she could deliver her deliverables.
I was told—
As an Individual
No, no. I'm trying to lead up to it. I'm trying to explain that—