(Ottawa) Neither the deputy minister of the Ministry of Public Services and Procurement nor the assistant deputy minister denied on Wednesday the value of 258 million in contracts obtained by the firm GC Strategies from the federal government since 2015. This number , or its rounded version of 250 million, was nevertheless mentioned four times by deputies in parliamentary committee during the testimony of Michael Mills and Dominic Laporte.
Questioned by The Press namely why they did not correct the number put forward by the deputies, MM. Mills and Laporte were unable to provide an explanation.
“We are not currently in a position to say,” offered Assistant Deputy Minister Dominic Laporte, hastening to indicate that this was not an official answer to the question before referring us to his department’s communications. . He also congratulated The Press for his reporting on the GC Strategies affair before leaving the room.
The ministry had questioned the compilation carried out by The Press to the effect that GC Strategies, a firm which has only two partners who work from home, had obtained more than a hundred contracts from various ministries and agencies totaling 258 million since 2015. The calculation was made from the federal government website aimed at ensuring greater transparency in the awarding of contracts over $10,000 to companies. Radio-Canada then did the same exercise to arrive at the sum of 239 million.
Bloc Québécois MP Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagnés, Conservative MP Pierre Paul-Hus and NDP MP Blake Desjarlais all mentioned the rounded sum of 250 million in their questions to Deputy Minister Mills and Assistant Deputy Minister Laporte who never corrected this number. Conservative MP Michael Barrett cited the sum of 258 million without MM. Mills and Laporte take it back.
The two senior officials testified at the standing committee on public accounts Wednesday in the wake of the Auditor General’s report on the financial fiasco surrounding the application ArriveCAN.
“No one is able to say exactly how much GC Strategy obtained and I think that is the crux of the problem,” reacted Mme Sinclair-Desgagnés leaving the committee. “Everything in terms of documentation is so poorly done that ultimately, we are unable to know in the most recent years how much this company has received. »
“They don’t want to talk about what happened,” lamented Mr. Paul-Hus.
Confusion reigns over the value of contracts awarded to GC Strategies since the Liberals came to power in 2015. Neither the ministry, nor Minister Jean-Yves Duclos, nor the documents submitted to Parliament supposed to allow the public to see how their money is spent does not allow a clear picture to be established.
In an email last week, the ministry argued that the total value of contracts awarded to the company over the past eight years is much lower, citing the sum of 59.8 million for 34 contracts. Open government data is unreliable since the same contract can appear more than once without being well specified. An observation shared by the procurement ombudsman.
A compilation carried out by all federal departments and agencies and duly signed by the responsible ministers and submitted to the House of Commons indicates instead that all the contracts that have been awarded to this firm since 2015 total 96 million.
One of the directors of GC Strategies, Kristian Firth, had already indicated to the parliamentary committee that he had obtained contracts from 20 ministries. He also claimed to take a commission ranging from 15% to 30%, depending on industry standards. The company, splashed in a recent report by the Auditor General on the application ArriveCAN, has no expertise in information technology. It gets contracts from the federal government and then finds programmers to do the work.
SCREENSHOT OF VIDEO PROVIDED BY THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
Kristian Firth, one of the directors of GC Strategies, in the Chamber
Senior department officials maintained that they did their job well by advising the Border Services Agency (CBSA) that there was a risk in awarding contracts without calls for tenders to GC Strategies, but that ultimately it was the AFSC which made the final decision.
Ministry officials, however, co-signed the contracts awarded for ArriveCAN just like the vague task authorizations which allowed their value to be inflated.
Mr. Mills affirmed that his department had put in place several control measures since then, including ensuring that task authorizations are clear and include deliverables to be able to assess whether the work has been properly carried out.