Public Accounts Committee on Feb. 12th, 2024

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

From $80,000 to approximately $60 million, and it will probably continue to be more once we get some documentation, it's now abundantly clear to Canadians why the Liberal government, under Justin Trudeau and his members, did everything in their power to shut down your audit. They voted against your audit. They routinely shut down committees. Just last week they shut down the committee that you and I were involved in when it was revealed that the RCMP were investigating. All of a sudden they brought a motion to adjourn.

Just last week a release of the preliminary report by the CBSA investigator was too scary for some Liberal members, and they required a complete shutdown of witnesses to study ArriveCAN. It's abundantly clear what they were trying to hide. This is a gross misuse of taxpayer funds.

You indicated the public service should do better. This is an example of the worst record-keeping practices you have seen in your tenure as the Auditor General.

In terms of moving forward, the CBSA has promised to follow your recommendations for changes internally. However, to the Canadians who are watching this who have now realized that this government has abused and misused their taxpayer funds, what civil and criminal consequences should befall this government?

[Karen Hogan]

Matters of a criminal nature and decisions in that respect rest with law enforcement. In this case, the RCMP would be the experts to tell you what action, if any, is needed. That is not my place.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

GC Strategies is under RCMP investigation, not for the ArriveCAN app but in relation to another application involving a software company out of Montreal, and the government as well, including the CBSA. That's the focus. The RCMP has never been focused on the ArriveCAN app.

During the course of your investigation, led by Mr. Hannoush and shared to you, Ms. Hogan, and to Mr. Hayes, did you uncover elements of suspicion with respect to GC Strategies that warranted a potential referral to the RCMP?

[Karen Hogan]

This is a bit of an unusual situation. Normally when we're in auditing, the RCMP has not been referred matters. In this case, they were referred in a matter around contracting. I am not aware if they've begun an investigation or where that investigation is going.

I didn't have to turn my mind to if I need to decide if there are other things I should refer. I did have a conversation with the RCMP. It was a very general one because our report was not yet made public. It was made public only today. I told them that, if they would like to have access to our file, they should send me an official request to do so, and we would be happy to provide them with any of the evidence that we have.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much. I'm afraid that is the time.

Ms. Yip, you have the floor for five minutes, please.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

It's been quite the morning.

Thank you for coming.

Why was the CBSA's own procurement directorate not involved in the contracting process?

[Karen Hogan]

That's an excellent question. I'd encourage you to ask Canada Border Services Agency.

Many departments have their own procurement arm that is there to help ensure policies are followed and best practices are there. Oftentimes, they might work with Public Services and Procurement Canada to ensure there is good competition and the best value for money is achieved, but what we found here, in this case, was that individuals were directly working with Public Services and Procurement Canada and they weren't always involving their own procurement directorate.

We made a recommendation around that being a best practice that really should be used. They're there because they are experts in contracting and can help ensure that a contracting file is well supported and that all of the decisions that should be in there are well documented.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

In terms of user testing, 12 out of 25 did not complete user testing, while 10 out of 13 had user methodology but the testing results were incomplete. Why did this happen?

[Karen Hogan]

This is really a best practice that we would have expected to see when there is an IT project. In this case, there were 177 releases to the application. We focused in on the 25. The numbers you're referring to are really what we focused in on, which was the 25 major releases, which meant that there was a significant change happening to the ArriveCAN application.

You would normally expect to see a plan for good user testing to ensure that the application is operating as intended, and you would document the results of those testings and any corrective measures if needed. When we looked at those 25, we found that 12 of them actually had nothing documented. It doesn't mean the testing didn't happen, but there was no proof that testing had occurred.

What the risk is there is that you release an app that isn't functioning as intended and, in fact, that's what Canada saw at some point, when 10,000 travellers were incorrectly told that they needed to quarantine.

We would expect that the department would have done all this testing and documented it well before releasing a change to the application.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

How were procurement contracts decided to be tendered on a competitive or a non-competitive basis?

[Karen Hogan]

That decision usually rests with the department making the decision.

There are many reasons why you could choose a non-competitive contract. They're allowed in the procurement policies and directives, but when that happens, you would expect that you would have clearly documented your interactions with the vendor and that you would have also documented clearly why you chose them.

Typically, to go non-competitive, there needs to be a really good, valid reason. In this case, there was very little documentation as to why GC Strategies was selected and how they could fulfill the requirements of the contract.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Okay.

Was there a deep lack of documentation? There was obviously not enough documentation in bookkeeping practices, and in other departments there were. What do you think made the difference in these bookkeeping practices?

[Karen Hogan]

It's a question, again, that I think you should probably ask the department.

When we spoke to many people, what we heard is that they were in the pandemic. It was a never-before-seen situation. The public service was asked to act quickly to support Canadians, but you know, the basic elements that we would expect to see just aren't there. It's a head-scratcher for me as to why they're not there. I've definitely seen the public service do better.

It isn't just around contracting, but it was around project management—no oversight and no budget. It was around user testing on the applications. There were so many key elements that I would have expected to see documented that just aren't there, and when you don't have the records, many of the questions you're asking just can't be answered.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you. That is all the time we have.

Auditor, I want to thank you and your team for coming in today. I've said this before in private, but I do appreciate your coming before this parliamentary committee and arranging for your office to be here for the lock-up this morning for parliamentarians. That is invaluable to us, as well as coming to committee with your opening statements to hear directly from lawmakers.

I know we're going to see you and your team again tomorrow, along with the departmental officials. We look forward to that.

With the committee's approval, the meeting is adjourned.