The House Government Operations Committee has agreed to subpoena the heads of the IT staffing companies at the center of the ArriveCan controversy.
GC Strategies, the largest contractor working on the app ArriveCan project, is facing increased scrutiny after the auditor general cited overreliance on contractors as a key factor in inflating the project’s costs. There is.
Lawmakers on the committee agreed on Wednesday to subpoena two of the firm’s partners, Christian Firth and Darren Anthony, to testify about their involvement with ArriveCan.
The Government Steering Committee has been studying ArriveCan for several months. Mr. Firth has addressed the committee twice so far.
The committee asked Firth and Anthony to return in November and again earlier this month, but they declined, citing mental health concerns.
Lawmakers agreed to subpoena Firth and Anthony if consideration was given to their health concerns.
The agreement to subpoena GC Strategies comes after a damning report from Canada’s auditor general revealed a “blatant disregard” for basic contracting practices.
In a scathing new report, Canada’s Auditor General said the final cost of the ArriveCan app is “impossible to determine” due to poor record-keeping by the Canada Border Services Agency. Andrew Chan details the report’s findings on this pandemic-era tool, which is estimated to have cost Canadians nearly $60 million.
The auditor general said in the report that it found little documentation showing why or how GC Strategies was selected for the project.
The report also indicated that some CBSA employees had close relationships with certain contractors, noting that the employees in question were invited “to dinner parties and other activities.” The Auditor General did not name the contractors or employees in question.
CBC News reached out to GC Strategies following the release of the auditor general’s report, but did not receive a response.
The committee will meet again on Thursday to hear from two public officials involved in the controversy.
Antonio Utano and Cameron Macdonald have been suspended without pay following the preliminary results of a Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) internal investigation into the ArriveCan contract.
CBSA Chairman Erin O’Gorman said the investigation “found a pattern of sustained collaboration between certain officials and GC Strategies, who sought to circumvent or ignore established procurement processes, roles and responsibilities. It shows our efforts to do so.”
Mr. Utano and Mr. McDonald subsequently left the CBSA to work for the Canada Revenue Agency and Health Canada, respectively, but were suspended after Mr. O’Gorman shared the initial findings of the investigation with the heads of both departments.
Mr. Utano and Mr. MacDonald have denied any wrongdoing during previous committee appearances.