Government Operations committee  My priority was always and continues to be to develop our resources and employees. Just before the beginning of the pandemic that was the intention of starting small with a team called a mobile centre of excellence, bringing in the resources not to do but to teach and learn.

Government Operations committee  It actually takes many years to develop the skills needed to develop this type of software. The ArriveCAN application was very complicated.

Government Operations committee  It only happened once. In my career, these are the first types of events that have damaged my character, my integrity and my trust in some leadership. I don't know what the right response is, if it's frequent or not. I've never had this experience.

Government Operations committee  I'm not the procurement expert; I'll be completely honest. Since there's a separation of roles, responsibilities and duties, I would lean to my procurement colleagues in that.

Government Operations committee  That's correct.

Government Operations committee  All contracts for ArriveCAN were ultimately reviewed and approved by PSPC, going through our CBSA contracting team. When Mr. MacDonald left, I continued those conversations on those weekly bilaterals. We were meeting with them weekly because the pandemic was continually changing, and the requirements were changing.

Government Operations committee  That's correct.

Government Operations committee  I provided those subsequent emails after resolution. Miss Dutt had comments in those emails asking if they could engage in a direct contract, to which we replied that we would have to go for a whole new contracting process. Her dissolution or removal from the partnership was totally up to her, but we would have to go to CBSA's contracting and procurement department to even begin those conversations.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, the answer is no. The level of complexity that was developed for the mobile application—and I want to remind the committee of this—has progressed to what you see today. It started with a basic digital form, and we were able to do that internally. It then progressed to pre-border, at-border, post-border, transactional, and then holding on to very private information of travellers to Canada.

Government Operations committee  I am going to say yes. The email from September 27 that I received from Ms. Dutt was not a report but rather an email that raised two issues. One was a payment delay and the second was a concern about Botler's relationship in the partnership between GCS, Dalian, Coradix and Botler AI—nothing more.

Government Operations committee  Part of the resolution was that we reached out to our prime contractor, with whom we had the contract, Dalian and Coradix, and reminded them quite frankly that when we pay an invoice, we expect them to pay their employees. That was the resolution. Dalian and Coradix confirmed that they were going to make that payment.

Government Operations committee  The opportunity to access the email was there, Mr. Johns. I was disappointed that the email of September 27 was not accessed and presented at this committee when our leadership came here to speak to the committee.

Government Operations committee  At that point, the CIO would have had two proposals, two viable proposals—

Government Operations committee  Can I add to that, Mr. Chair? The technical team, the mobile centre of excellence, looked at a lot of other options, but the theme around it was in surge capacity. They wanted to participate in the development. They saw that was a better approach in the long term. They worked in developing this concept and forwarded it to me, which I then forwarded directly, actually, to my CIO, Minh Doan, and then left it there for a decision and a reference.

Government Operations committee  We had a technical team—a very small mobile centre of excellence team—that was just getting off the ground and working in mobile. When this pandemic hit and the Public Health Agency of Canada came to us in urgency, requesting this capability for mobile to deal with the contact tracing, we had to look for options.