Before I begin, Chair, as you can see, I hit my head on a door this morning.
I'm here to tell the truth, but I am very concerned that if I tell the truth here, I'm going to lose my job.
Good afternoon. I thank the committee for inviting me here as a guest to speak. I thank the chair and the committee for the same time consideration that whistle-blower Allan Cutler was allotted during the sponsorship scandal. I never imagined that I would be named in the House of Commons. I suspect that this is why I've been invited here. I'm happy to answer the committee's questions. I have been muzzled for some time now.
I've been a public servant for nearly 20 years. I currently serve as a supply team leader at Public Works in the real property contracting directorate. In December 2018, I was assigned to CBSA IT services to assist with the procurement backlog, providing administrative support and learning the TBIPS IT professional services commodity. From December 2018 to July 2023, I had no access to the CBSA, PSPC or any other Government of Canada procurement systems. When I seconded to CBSA, PSPC automatically cancelled my contracting authority. CBSA knew I had no procurement authority. CBSA did not permit me access to the CBSA procurement system or contract documentation.
Each department grants PGs the right to sign contracts on behalf of Canada. This permission is revoked when they leave for another position. Without this permission, access to procurement systems and documentation is denied. No one from CBSA, PSPC, TBIPS, clients or security has publicly clarified my lack of procurement authority, leading to public criticism and humiliation. My inability to speak out has been stymied by CBSA and PSPC security investigations.
I resumed procurement contracting duties in July 2023 at PSPC. I went over to CBSA as a PG-05 and I am still a PG-05. I did not receive a promotion.
On April 17, 2024, Mr. Firth mentioned my name in the House of Commons. My great-grandfather was one of the men who cleared the land to build the Parliament of Canada. I did not meet with Mr. Firth in person and communicated virtually due to the pandemic. My role was administrative, coordinating information for various stakeholders. I do not recall discussing IT requirements with Mr. Firth.
From 2020 to 2022, the issues of GC Strategies' very poor documentation, errors with submissions and slow responses to resolution for the errors have been raised with TBIPS PSPC managers and the contractor by me and other CBSA staff. I did not provide advice on RFPs or technical requirements. Only CBSA IT experts could do that. If Mr. Firth sent me any information, I would have forwarded it to the CBSA IT experts. I had no access to draft RFPs, and I'm not an IT expert. Mr. Firth should look at the contracts he was awarded for the signature of the contracting authority who signed it. I did not sign any contracts.
On December 7, 2023, I received an email from Michel Lafleur, CBSA security, to interview as an ArriveCAN investigation witness. I was seeking medical support for a cancer diagnosis, so I declined the optional interview. On December 13 and 14, my director general insisted on meeting me, and told me, in an MS Teams meeting, to give false testimony against my former bosses for CBSA's security interview. The PSPC DG and director offered to attend the security interview with me. During the meeting, my DG implicated the PSPC deputy minister and the CBSA president to pressure me further. I told them I had nothing negative to say about my former bosses. If I had witnessed any improprieties at CBSA, I would have reported them immediately to my director at CBSA or my senior director at Public Works. I would not have waited until I left CBSA.
Reporting serious occurrences to the Government of Canada is a critical responsibility. I have permission to share this with the committee to demonstrate where I reported a serious occurrence to the Government of Canada. In April 2016. a non-security cleared person from the Ottawa-Carleton Association for Persons with Developmental Disabilities, or OCAPDD, Tom Gillespie, went through the back door near the loading dock at the National Archives to strong-arm a signature from Sharlene Cooney, a non-verbal, developmentally disabled woman, to remove her community support services. This action caused the revocation of her provincial transfer funding from Rideau Regional Centre and is against DSO policy. He did not sign in at the security desk at Tunney's Pasture. Tom and other archives staff asked Sharlene to a separate room for an unscheduled meeting. In March 2016 Tom tried to have Sharlene sign a letter to remove herself as an OCAPDD client due to her reaction to a dental infection. His boss, Lisa Somers, and the executive director of OCAPDD, David Ferguson, were refusing the supports she needed and wanted the police to handle it.
Sharlene taped the meeting in March 2016. The previous year, Lisa Somers sent a male employee to Sharlene's emergency medical appointment without permission when she was already there with her long-term worker, who was known to the doctor. Dr. Levitan did not know Mike but let him in. This resulted in Sharlene losing her primary doctor.
On April 6, 2016, Sharlene fled towards the OC Transpo transitway. The Ottawa police told Sharlene not to return to the National Archives program, confirming OCAPDD is not allowed to harass and intimidate people. I reported this incident to the security office at ESDC on July 25, 2016. The federal government has not responded to this day.
When the MCCSS Ottawa received the report about the OCAPDD supervisor's harassment of Sharlene at the National Archives, OCAPDD and the Ontario Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services revoked Sharlene's Rideau Regional funding, established with the community transfer committee led by the late Dr. Bruce McCreary, and Sharlene received the attached funding for her care.
When reported to David Remington, the acting ADM of MCCSS and MCCSS Ottawa, the ministry moved to protect OCAPDD, an agency that uses multiple law firms with your tax dollars to ensure that the top legal firms in Ottawa cannot be used to advocate for clients, while the former provincial government cut legal aid for clients who are mistreated in this way from care centres, agencies and other not-for-profits. This legal aid cut occurred at the same time the Province of Ontario closed the last institution for special-needs persons.
In Ontario, developmentally disabled persons can only access legal aid for matrimonial dissolution, adoption issues, tenant disputes and criminal charges. These types of abuses towards this population by provincially funded not-for-profits are no longer covered by legal aid support in Ontario.
Registered letters were sent to the current Premier of Ontario's office and the Prime Minister's Office. Neither office cared to reply, or cared, full stop.
The DSO has never restored Sharlene's community transfer funding and has not responded to passport funding application attempts, even though Rideau Regional clients with transfer funding are equally entitled to passport funding for personal needs and programs like Sharlene's communications books.
My former DG's escalating actions regarding the CBSA's security interview raised red flags. Like Sharlene, I felt intimidated and needed a record of the conversation to protect myself. Like Sharlene, investigations have rendered me unable to speak. Despite assurances from my DG and senior director that CBSA was not investigating me, ATIP records show PSPC began investigating me on December 11, 2023. Taxpayers should know that CBSA and PSPC are investigating me for alleged breaches of the CBSA and PSPC codes of conduct regarding procurement. I haven't had federal authorization to do procurement from December 2018 through July 2023. I am currently on administrative leave from Public Works.
I believe this is because CBSA and Public Works did not get the negative narrative expected about two former bosses at CBSA in the January 15, 2024, security interview. My former DG was appointed DG of the new professional services transformative solutions sector on March 27, 2024, two weeks after I was placed on leave. This sector manages TBIPS.
This promotion was likely approved by the deputy minister of PSPC. It should be noted that the current PSPC deputy minister previously worked at CBSA between 2007 and 2016.
Mark Webber, president of the Customs and Immigration Union, emphasizes the need for better protections against excessive discipline and abuses of authority. According to the policy on investigations, allegations must be filed by a manager from the employee's department. If an employee is called for a security interview, their direct manager should inform them, not a higher-level official as my former DG did.
My senior union representative has stated twice that they've never seen anything like this. Senior management and political employees pitting federal government workers against each other to create false allegations and divert investigations from TBIPS issues is akin to a malicious 911 call on a co-worker.
My job is under threat because of what I saw, not what I did. No one wants me to speak about TBIPS. Ongoing Auditor General and OGGO investigations and reports of double-dipping, contracting improprieties and the political pressure on December 15, 2023, has made me realize why PWGSC is trying to keep the focus on CBSA's software application issue and away from PSPC's TBIPS.
PG-06s and PG-05s at PSPC signed or orchestrated the contracting processes for GC Strategies, which CBSA procurement staff were instructed to follow precisely.
TBIPS is a PSPC mandatory tool for federal departments to purchase IT professional services, an online shopping catalogue, like Eaton's, where TBIPS team members pre-qualify contractors and companies like GC Strategies and place them into the government-wide purchasing catalogue. No manager, DG or minister in the federal government is permitted to buy IT pro services from any other source but this TBIPS-designed catalogue. There may be exceptions unknown to me.
On October 1, 2020, I attended a meeting with the senior director of TBIPS, the manager of TBIPS and my CBSA executive director. I questioned the RFP and SOW processes, as they were more complex than usual government procedures. The senior director of TBIPS stated that it was common for TBIPS to advise clients to ask TBIPS suppliers for IT requirement suggestions. I had never encountered this in the private sector or federal public service. Asking for policy or legal teams about the senior director's instructions would have been seen as insubordination.
The PG-06 of TBIPS trained me on the formatting of documents. She was the primary manager responsible for overseeing and approving these documents. Although I am not part of the CBSA IT department, I acted as a liaison, facilitating the flow of IT requests between CBSA IT, CBSA procurement, and PSPC TBIPS, according to TBIPS instructions. My role involved filling out the necessary forms, but I did not have the authority to generate purchase requisitions, create contract documentation, spend money or sign contracts.
Taxpayers should know that I was unaware that the TBIPS buying unit was housed where the TBIPS catalogue is produced. I found this out in February 2024 through a Google search by several IT consultants. I believe the ArriveCAN app investigation has uncovered a more damning issue outside of ArriveCAN. It's called TBIPS at PSPC. I do not work at TBIPS. The PG-06 manager of TBIPS oversaw my work. At every stage she trained me. If there were issues with my work, she would have informed me and my director, and she should have corrected me.
CBSA procurement was also being guided by TBIPS who were often signators on the GC Strategies contracts. I'll quote my sister, who currently works in compliance: “This TBIPS issue will escalate CBSA into a Procurement Pox affecting many more departments, Ministers, and DGs throughout the government. It’s a financial nightmare. The TBIPS tent should be dismantled and separated, with catalog vetting done independently. No PGs, especially active designated PGs, should be housed in the same vicinity, similar to how Contract Security operates separately from buyers. The appearance or direct conflict of interest is akin to having a Mergers and Acquisitions group in the same area as stockbrokers. There is a reason for the division of duties in an investment house—it’s called insider trading.”
CBSA and I had been reaching out to the manager and the team of TBIPS regarding ongoing problems with extremely poor documentation from GC Strategies since 2020. In the spring of 2022, the manager of the BTID DGO, the manager's administration officer and I met with both the supply team leader responsible for the $25-million TBIPS RFP contract and her manager to discuss various issues regarding recurring poor documentation from GC Strategies, noting that there had been no improvement in this matter over several years. Instead, the situation became worse. The manager of CBSA BTID DGO and I asked if the RFP could be cancelled and retendered, given the reporting of this information and the lack of resolution to the ongoing problems with paperwork from GC Strategies.
TBIPS stated that they could not delay awarding the contract to GC Strategies despite the information provided by our team. PSPC proceeded to award the contract to GC Strategies despite the reported issues with the supplier in the spring of 2022. The $25-million contract was signed by an authorized PG-05 from the TBIPS team, not me.
Thank you.
