One of the key public servants involved in the Alivecan controversy has denied accusations that he lied to MPs about his involvement in the selection of an outside contractor for the project.
Former Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) officer Minh Doan appeared before the House of Representatives Government Operations Committee on Wednesday night.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police I have been investigating GC Strategies is one of the prime contractors on the ArriveCan project.
Doan maintained that he was not the one who brought GC Strategies on, despite his previous testimony that he was the one who selected the company. He said there were two options for the project and he chose a particular direction, but GC Strategies was not specifically named among the options presented.
“I didn’t decide on a company,” he said.[The] The proposal contained only technical information and did not include any information about GC Strategies. GC Strategies was not mentioned at any time, nor was there any decision to specifically contract with GC Strategies.”
This is Doan’s first appearance before the committee since the auditor general said in February that the final cost of the Alivecan project was “impossible to determine” due to poor government record-keeping.
Auditor General Karen Hogan’s estimate of the total cost is just under $60 million, and she said the government’s heavy reliance on outside contractors contributed to the inflated costs.
Horgan’s report also raised concerns about CBSA officers’ close ties to certain contractors, noting the officers in question had been invited to “dinners and other activities.”
Top stories of the week: Canada’s auditor general finds “blatant disregard for rules” in how the Liberal government commissioned the ArriveCan app during the pandemic; Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault says the government will build the roads; In a private call, a Liberal MP slams the government’s response to the Gaza conflict.
The auditor general said GC Strategies received roughly $19 million from ArriveCan, more than any other company, though the company disputes that figure.
Two former CBSA employees, Antonio Utano and Cameron MacDonald, have appeared before government steering committees multiple times in recent months to allege that their then-boss, Doan, selected GC Strategies for the project.
“Minh Doan completely lied to the Canadian people,” MacDonald said in February.
But Doan suggested on Wednesday that it was McDonald and Utano who had lied.
“Who had a relationship with GC Strategies years before the pandemic? It was clearly not me,” he said.
Doan pointed to affidavits filed in federal court in recent months by MacDonald and Utano that suggested he had suggested GC Strategies as an option for AliveCan.
“The CBSA internal group, which included Utano, reviewed six to seven pre-vetted companies and ultimately recommended GC Strategies as the solution,” MacDonald’s affidavit, a copy of which was obtained by CBC, said.
The affidavit further states that McDonald later suggested Deloitte as another option, but Doan selected GC Strategies as his final choice.
The auditor general was unable to determine which government official made the final decision to initially select GC Strategies for ArriveCan.
After developing the app, Doan, Utano and McDonald each moved to different government agencies.
Email Questions
In his previous testimony, McDonald also accused Doan of deleting emails related to ArriveCan.
Doan denied on Wednesday that he intentionally deleted the emails. He said technical problems with his work computer had corrupted some of the emails.
Conservative MP Michael Barrett found the suggestion incredible. “It seems incredible to me to believe that’s the story they’re trying to get us to accept,” he said.
But Doan argued the emails were likely still there somewhere on government servers or in the inboxes of other officials.
“The fact that the files are corrupted does not mean that those emails no longer exist; they are all present in the mailboxes of everyone who has received an email from me,” he said in French.
Several investigations have been launched
In February the Information Commissioner launched an investigation into allegations of “destruction of records” relating to ArriveCan.
The CBSA is conducting an internal investigation into the AliveCan contract, and agency Director Erin O’Gorman told the House of Commons Government Operations Committee in January that she had serious concerns about the investigation’s “preliminary factual presentation.”
O’Gorman said the investigation “uncovered a pattern of ongoing collaboration between certain officials and GC Strategies Ltd. that demonstrated efforts to circumvent or ignore established procurement processes, roles and responsibilities.”
Utano and McDonald were suspended from the civil service after O’Gorman received his initial report, but both have disputed the report’s findings.
“In reality, this document is nothing more than a collection of unsubstantiated accusations not supported by any corroborating evidence, accusations of misconduct supported by cherry-picked emails and calendars. It should be called a false preliminary statement,” MacDonald told the committee in February.
Utano and McDonald claim they were made scapegoats after telling the committee that Doan had lied to them.
Canada’s Public Sector Integrity Commissioner has opened an investigation into both ArriveCan’s management and the suspension of Utano and MacDonald.
