Government Operations committee  It had different contracts with the CBSA, but it was not involved in the final contract that was executed, which was supposed to be for our work.

Government Operations committee  I have not spoken with the RCMP yet. They have spoken with Amir. We faced immediate reprisal from the contractors as soon as we reported the September 2021 misconduct. We had issues getting security clearances for other staff members who were supposed to be working on the projects.

Government Operations committee  I might quickly add to that. You have already seen evidence of this in The Globe and Mail. They published an article with the email from Firth saying, “FYI”. Read that email. He says the amount was cut but that we could recover it from the next one, which is CRA. That is promising a guaranteed contract with the CRA, and also promising that we are going to extract funds from one contract for another.

Government Operations committee  Absolutely.

Government Operations committee  I think we can give you, very quickly, our original CVs and the CVs that were provided to the contracting authority showing that we had inflated experience. That's going to be the quickest one. We also have multiple legal notices that we sent to the different parties involved, demanding that they provide proof of our consent to being named on the contracts, which we never provided.

Government Operations committee  That is correct, but there is some more context to it. At the same time that we sent the misconduct report to Antonio Utano, Amir had also sent an email to Ying-Ying Ong, who was another project liaison at the CBSA, requesting that immediately payments to the contractors—Dalian and Coradix—be stopped and any payments that had already been made to the contractors by the CBSA be refunded.

Government Operations committee  Officially, we started work on the project at the beginning of February, I believe, but we had been working unofficially on the project for years. We started groundwork in I believe November 2019, when we were first contacted—

Government Operations committee  Correct.

Government Operations committee  I believe she's literally using semantics there to say that we have been paid something, but we have not been paid in full.

Government Operations committee  The CBSA does say on record that this is an issue between the contractors. The CBSA is also aware through numerous records, ATIPs and direct reports that we have no relationship with the contractors. These were the CBSA's contractors, so I'm not sure where this relationship between us and the contractors would be enforced by the CBSA.

Government Operations committee  That is correct. In December 2021, when we again reported misconduct, after which the CBSA responded by retaliating and cutting the project, they had said.... It was either then or earlier Ms. Daly said that they must retain confidences in their contractors. Then, in the November 2022 misconduct report, where we stated we had still not been paid, the CBSA's Pierre Lessard, who is, I believe, now in charge of the investigation....

Government Operations committee  I would say that this is something that OGGO can ask for proof of, because we're not aware of the amount that was transferred between Dalian and GC Strategies, but we know that GC Strategies accidentally issued an overpayment to Botler of about $2,000. We don't believe that was a mistake because, when you multiply that amount times six, it adds up to $14,000, which is a missing amount.

Government Operations committee  Yes, we were threatened. When we reported the misconduct, there wasn't just the September 2021 misconduct report. We also reported in December 2021, after which the CBSA responded by cancelling the project. They had asked for us to provide the remainder of the work over to them, which we did.

Government Operations committee  Those were issued by Diane Daly. Again, this is an individual from the CBSA who got involved once we started reporting, and she started sending responses on behalf of the CBSA. What they were demanding, on behalf of Canada, was that we send over all records that we have of all notes, file notes, documents or whatever we had.

Government Operations committee  That is correct. What I would add is that we handed over the work to the CBSA. We handed it over to Firth, Kristian Firth at GC Strategies, on February 3, 2022. Based on the PSPC contracting rules, I believe they have five days to review the work and get back to us if they have any requests for modifications.