Public Accounts Committee on Feb. 13th, 2024

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

While I have expressed my own disappointment in what has happened with this app, I think it's improper for members to put words in my mouth, to say that I'm negating or somehow belittling the situation all in all. I'm asking reasonable questions and looking for reasonable solutions going forward. I'm sorry if I haven't feigned outrage, as some of my colleagues have.

I do respect the witnesses who are present with us today. I'm hopeful we can continue to work together to find those solutions, to rebuild that trust and to ensure that we get to the bottom of what happened here and where we go going forward.

Ms. Hogan, as you were going through the audit process, did you find that all departments were co-operative with you? Did they give you all the information you were looking for? Were they open and forthcoming?

[Karen Hogan]

Yes. We received all of the information we requested. At times, it was rather voluminous, and the turnaround time was very quick.

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

Thank you. I appreciate that.

It is disappointing that there was lack of documentation for you to review to come to a better conclusion, and we recognize that. As Ms. O'Gorman has said, these are issues that I'm sure the CBSA will take seriously when rectifying things going forward.

Ms. O'Gorman, there have been questions back and forth to you about discrepancies in your testimony at OGGO, a different committee. Can you please clarify why there are discrepancies, or if there are any?

[Erin O'Gorman]

I testified truthfully with the information I had every time I appeared at committee. It's unclear to me why there are questions with regard to my truthfulness or any discrepancies.

I'm happy to address them. They're being referred to in general ways, and it's very hard to address them without precision.

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

Thank you. I appreciate that.

I would hate for you to be pushed off a glass cliff. We always look for strong leadership in these types of positions. I hope you are able to take that leadership and rectify these challenges.

Now, there were some questions raised with respect to executive bonuses. Ms. O'Gorman, you spoke about the executive bonuses. Obviously, Canadians are rightly concerned about how our taxpayer dollars are used. They would not agree with providing executive bonuses to anyone who's been found guilty of wrongdoing.

If the investigation uncovers wrongdoing in any part by the executives of the CBSA, is there a process whereby you would reclaim those bonuses? How would you fix that situation?

[Erin O'Gorman]

It's exactly as you said. There is a process. If information comes to light that would call into question the bonus or, frankly, the assessment of the individual, which would be tied to their remuneration, there is a clear policy within the Treasury Board to be able to claw that back.

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

Thank you very much.

I'll use the remainder of the time, Chair, if I may, to ask the clerk a question.

With respect to the officials who were cancelled with short notice today, when will they be reinvited back to this committee so that we can ask our questions of them as well?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

That has not been determined yet, Ms. Khalid.

You still have 50 seconds.

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

When will that be determined, Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'm going to see what their availability is.

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

I'm hopeful we will discuss that with the other members of the committee before we decide when to invite them.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

You're hopeful. I've noted that.

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

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

Once again, Ms. Sinclair-Desgagné, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Let's compare ArriveCAN with similar apps in other countries, for example.

For a population more than twice that of Canada, France paid 9 million euros for its application, or about $12 million Canadian. In Germany, the same app cost $29 million Canadian for a population of 83 million people.

Ms. O'Gorman, according to the report, between July 2022, when you took up your duties, and March 2023, when the Auditor General had a more complete picture, almost $12 million was spent on the ArriveCAN app. Twelve million Canadian dollars is as much as the total cost of a similar application for a population of 70 million people, just since you've been in your position.

What are your thoughts on those costs, and why didn't you just internalize them and save taxpayers some money?

[Erin O'Gorman]

I'll say a few things. One, we are always looking at what our allies are doing and trying to take from them any innovations, but I don't think comparing the population is necessarily accurate in terms of.... I'm not aware of what their requirements are versus the requirements that we had, so I can't—

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

The requirements were the same. It had to do with proof of vaccination, entering and leaving the country. It's not necessarily based on population, but that provides a good approximation of the number of people using the app. In information technology—you may not be aware of this—the main factor to consider in developing a new application is the projected number of users.

[Erin O'Gorman]

I'm not in a position to comment on the details of their work versus ours.

I will say that for the part of ArriveCAN we are currently using, the submission of the advance declaration, going forward the estimated cost is approximately $3 million per year. I can hand it over to my colleague to provide those details.

[Darryl Vleeming]

As President O'Gorman said, population isn't the biggest driver of the cost of developing an app. Unfortunately, CBSA has a tremendous amount of technical debt. The capability and cost to link a modern application to it is very expensive, and that was a primary driver for it.

Additionally, because our provinces are so separate—each had its own vaccination certificates—that drove up the cost significantly as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Desjarlais, you have the floor for two and a half minutes, please.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I do want to return to the report again, which I think is the reason all of us are here.

On page 7, exhibit 1.2, it says “The Canada Border Services Agency continued to rely heavily on external resources to develop ArriveCAN from April 2020 to March 2023”. It cites, of course, the information related to both external and internal costs as it relates to this project in particular.

It notes, at least in my reflection of this information, a very serious lack of internal capacity and IT capacity that has put CBSA in a position where they must accept a contract. This is not new in the federal public service. In my perspective, we've witnessed these kinds of cuts since the nineties. We've seen consecutive Liberal and Conservative governments cut down the public service. We see austerity, and when we have austerity to the public service, it's my firm belief that we are now vulnerable to these kinds of very real challenges present to a government.

I know it's not something we can fix just like this, with this report. It's a much deeper issue. I believe the rot is very deep, and this level of reliance and dependency on external contractors has put the government in direct risk, and not just in the CBSA. I fear this could exist in any instance of outsourcing across the government.

My concern is how we properly address it with the resources that we have, and how we ensure that issues like outsourcing are dealt with seriously and the extreme operating deficit of the government is actually taken into account. I think this is a core part to this discussion that, absent the RCMP investigation, which I'm in support of, we need to focus on in this work. We need to focus on the fact that this dependency has left a critical vulnerability of the government, which has been exploited in the Phoenix pay system of the former government, and now we have another example of private entities taking direct and very purposeful intervention with the public service in order to award themselves contracts.

That is what it looks like to me. GC Strategies was emailing CBSA officials, telling them what to put into a contract, and then telling them that they were going to get it and all they had to do was rubber-stamp it. That is simply unacceptable, and I've heard today that it's unacceptable for everyone here.

Now I want to get to the deeper issue—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Ask a very quick question, please.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

To the Auditor General, how can we find a path out of this direct reliance, which you say is an overreliance, on outsourcing? In your mind, is it a perceived risk to a future instance like this?

[Karen Hogan]

I think I would point to a few of the reports that we've issued on aging IT infrastructure. I think it's taken the public service decades to get where it is, and there needs to be a path to go forward, as you say.

I think some of it is about ensuring that contracts related to IT have a clause and have requirements where there is transfer of knowledge and expertise, or skill set at least, to the public service. We need to upscale the public service in order to be able to rely less on external expertise going forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Nater, you have the floor for five minutes, please.