(Ottawa) One of the civil servants who participated in a whiskey tasting organized by GC Strategies, the firm at the heart of the ArriveCAN scandal, has been promoted. Chulaka Ailapperuma has since become director of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). He had previously managed the development of this application which ended up costing taxpayers nearly 60 million.
Questioned by Bloc MP Nathalie Sinclair-Desgané on Tuesday, he admitted to having made “an error of judgment” and regretted having participated in this evening in 2020. He testified to the parliamentary public accounts committee in the company of the president of the CBSA, Erin O’Gorman.
Mr. Ailapperuma admitted that he did not follow the code of conduct that was in force at the time and that he rather saw this activity as a way of stimulating team spirit in the context of a very demanding project.
He confirmed that his superiors at the time, Cameron MacDonald and Antonio Utano, also participated. They are currently suspended without pay in the wake of the ArriveCAN scandal and an investigation opened by the CBSA into other allegations raised by the Montreal firm Botler AI.
Auditor General Karen Hogan raised irregularities in the awarding of a contract to GC Strategies for the development of the ArriveCAN application in her report in February. The firm, which has only two partners, notably participated in the development of the criteria for the call for tenders 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 this first contract of 2.35 million in April 2020. GC Strategies also invited the senior officials responsible for the file to this tasting of whiskey afterwards, casting doubt on the impartiality of the process.
Mr. Ailapperuma admitted to participating in another activity organized by GC Strategies in 2020, a dinner at a popular restaurant in Ottawa. He claimed to have only discussed the difficulties of implementing the application and to have spoken very little to Kristian Firth and Darren Anthony, the two partners of the firm.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) searched Mr. Firth’s home last month as part of an investigation unrelated to the ArriveCAN scandal. The next day, he testified at the bar of the House of Commons to answer questions from elected officials, a rare procedure which had not been used since 1913.
Mr. Ailapperuma won the Public Service Excellence Award in 2020 for his leadership when he piloted the ArriveCAN project. He was promoted to interim director of AFSC in 2022.
The smartphone app was launched by the federal government in April 2020, during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Travelers had to indicate their vaccination status and contact details upon arrival in Canada, before quarantining. Its use is no longer compulsory since the lifting of health measures at the border on 1er October 2022, but it can still be used to make customs and immigration declarations at the country’s major airports.
Further details will follow.