CBSA president says there's 'a lack of transparency' in ArriveCan contract relationships

The president of the Canada Border Services Agency told a parliamentary committee Tuesday that there was a lack of transparency in the contracting process used to create the controversial ArriveCan app.

The CBSA has been under fire since Auditor General Karen Hogan's February report estimated ArriveCan cost taxpayers roughly $59.5 million, in part because of the agency's reliance on external contractors.

That same report said the total cost of the app is "impossible to calculate" because of CBSA's "poor financial record keeping."

CBSA president Erin O'Gorman told MPs on the House public accounts committee Tuesday that she does not know why GC Strategies — a two-person IT firm that was paid the most out of more than a dozen contractors for its work on ArriveCan — subcontracted work to KPMG, a multinational accounting firm.

"As I have gone through this material and the information that has come to light, I've had that question as well," O'Gorman said. "I don't have insight into those commercial relationships but I understand that there's a lack of transparency in explaining those relationships."

Under questioning from Liberal MP Valerie Bradford, O'Gorman said she does not understand why a small company like GC Strategies would bid for a contract and then subcontract out the work to a large multinational firm. 

"I'm not suggesting it is offside or illegal, but I do find that questionable," she said. "I think transparency around that would be very helpful … why a two-person company would subcontract to a multinational. I don't understand that."  

The one-day $500 contract 

CBSA's former president, John Ossowski, now works for PricewaterhouseCoopers — an international consulting firm that offers auditing, accounting and management services. It is considered one of the major global accounting firms.   

Conservative MP Michael Barrett pressed O'Gorman on her decision to give Ossowski a paid government contract to help him prepare for previous committee testimony probing ArriveCan.

O'Gorman said the $500 contract was for only one day and only allowed Ossowski to access his emails from the time and to request documents related to his role in ArriveCan.

Barrett suggested the contract looks like Ossowski was "getting paid to get his story straight" and asked if the former CBSA president was given access to ensure there was an "alignment on messaging" with the talking points the CBSA is using.

"There was no alignment, there's no messaging," O'Gorman said. "I asked for material to prepare myself. He wanted to review documents that existed when he was the president of CBSA to refresh his memory."

Barrett questioned the decision to grant Ossowski access to CBSA documents and other sensitive information, suggesting O'Gorman was being a bit "laissez-faire" about information that could be "commercially valuable to PricewaterhouseCoopers."

O'Groman said that if hiring Ossowski for his one-day contract turns out to have been unnecessary, "that's on me."

O'Gorman said she did not know which documents Ossowski accessed while he was under the one-day contract; she said she would find out and inform the committee. She also defended the one-day contract as a normal practice in government.

"It's not uncommon for [former public servants] to be brought back on a casual contract to facilitate their access to the information and the support they need to prepare themselves to testify on behalf of the Crown," she said. 

Hogan's February report estimated that GC Strategies received $19.1 million for its work on ArriveCan. But that estimate only includes money paid to the company up to March of last year.

Officials from the auditor general's office told CBC News on background in February that the company could have received payments after that date.

The federal government says that from April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2023, $55 million was spent on ArriveCan, $38.2 million of which was paid to outside contractors.

It says that "work performed by resources through GC Strategies on ArriveCAN totalled $13.5 million dollars."

Hogan's report also found that GC Strategies was involved in developing requirements that were later used for the ArriveCan contract.

A separate report by Canada's procurement ombudsman later found that the criteria for the contract were "overly restrictive" and "heavily favoured" GC Strategies.