ArriveCAN case | Senior CBSA executives accused of lying

(Ottawa) Two civil servants suspended without pay in connection with the financial fiasco surrounding the design of the application ArriveCAN accuse the senior management of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) of lying in this matter in order to cover up its own incompetence.

In powerful testimony, the two officials – Cameron MacDonald and Antonio Utano – assert that it was members of senior management at the CBSA who chose the firm GC Strategies to lead the project at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, contradicting what they said before a parliamentary committee in recent months.

“It almost looks like a street fight between civil servants,” remarked Liberal MP Irek Kusmierczyk.

Elected officials from the government operations committee adopted a motion to call for another investigation, this time from the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner. The Procurement Ombudsman and the Auditor General have each already produced a report on federal contracts for ArriveCAN.

MM. MacDonald and Utano, who worked at the agency in the early days of the project before moving to other public service positions, argued that former CBSA President John Ossowski and former Vice -president and chief information officer of the agency, Minh Doan, made the decision to retain the services of GC Strategies. This consulting firm, which has only two employees, was singled out in a damning report by Auditor General Karen Hogan last week.

They also argued that the current president of the CBSA, Erin O’Gorman, lied to elected officials when she told a parliamentary committee that she did not know who made the decision to award multiple contracts to GC Strategies for the application design ArriveCAN. They pointed out in broad strokes that the positions they once held at the agency did not give them the authority to award contracts in this way.

“The CBSA is showing bad faith”

During their nearly three-hour testimony, MM. MacDonald and Utano claimed that CBSA senior management is increasing its dubious actions and botched investigations and refusing to disclose the information they need to defend themselves with the sole aim of making them scapegoats for a controversial project.

“I did not select GC Strategies. In fact, this company was not part of my recommendation,” said Cameron MacDonald, who was at the CBSA before obtaining another senior civil servant position at Health Canada, at the start of his testimony.

“The CBSA acted unfairly and continues to demonstrate bad faith. [Elle a] fabricated a scenario in order to take [ses] distances and avoid accountability. It is ironic that the people who are pointing fingers at us today are also the ones with the dirtiest hands,” said Mr. Utano, who is suspended without pay from his position at the Canada Revenue Agency.

MM. Cameron and Utano had already proclaimed their innocence before the same government operations committee on November 7. They were recalled again by elected officials following the publication of the Auditor General’s report.

In her report, the Auditor General noted irregularities in contracts totaling $19.1 million awarded to GC Strategies by the CBSA, solely for the development ofArriveCAN. This is almost a third of the $59.5 million that the application used to collect the contact details and vaccination status of travelers upon their arrival in Canada during the pandemic ended up costing. Its initial version had a total budget of $80,000.

“From my point of view, there was never a budget allocated,” said Mr. MacDonald to explain the cost overruns.

M^me Hogan noted that GC Strategies notably participated in developing the criteria for the tender which it won without a competitive process. But the Auditor General was unable to find documentation on the discussions between the firm and the CBSA to justify a first contract of 2.35 million in April 2020. GC Strategies also invited the senior officials responsible for the file to a tasting of whiskey afterwards, casting doubt on the impartiality of the process.

New testimony

During their testimony in November, MM. MacDonald and Utano also rejected outright the allegations made by the owners of the company Botler AI. The directors of this Montreal firm, Ritika Dutt and Amir Morv, affirmed before a parliamentary committee in October that there was “systemic corruption” in the federal apparatus, particularly at the CBSA, pointing the finger at MM. MacDonald and Utano. They had also previously described GC Strategies, with whom they had worked on a conversational bot project unrelated to ArriveCANlike a “ghost company”.

The CBSA launched an internal investigation following complaints from the Montreal firm and submitted documents to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which opened an investigation.

MM. MacDonald and Utano believe their suspensions without pay constitute retaliation for exposing information and criticizing the president of the CBSA during their previous testimony last fall.

On Thursday, they accused the managers of Botler AI of having wanted to trade the information they had collected on GC Strategies for contracts from the CBSA. The two suspended officials have filed a motion in Federal Court to quash the CBSA’s internal investigation, which they say is biased so that it is conducted by an independent third party.

“These allegations are completely and utterly false,” said Botler AI CEO Ritika Dutt. Botler never asked for a contract or any other benefit in exchange for information regarding misconduct. »

The company says it is “fully cooperating” with all investigations that have been opened even though it currently has no contract with the CBSA.