44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 17, 2024 02:00PM
- Apr/17/24 3:45:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we have never copied and pasted to win any contract.
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- Apr/17/24 3:51:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General found in her ArriveCAN report that Mr. Firth sat at the table with public servants to draft the requirements for a contract worth $25 million that he was later awarded and, thereby, was setting the price. Through you, what are the names of those public servants?
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- Apr/17/24 3:52:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the question posed to me was who did I speak with in May of 2022, prior to the contract award, and that was the procurement lady, which was the name I gave.
Subsequently, there was a question by the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan that was posed very similar to the hon. member's, which was who was I engaged with at CBSA when discussing suggestions, and that was Diane Daly.
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- Apr/17/24 3:53:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I do not know the answer to that question. It is common, once one has an existing contract in place, for a client to engage those services to help bring on a subject matter expert they would not otherwise have access to, or typically, because contracting takes quite a long time, to actually bring them in if it is a time-sensitive deliverable.
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- Apr/17/24 4:03:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it has been noted, particularly by the Auditor General, that people from GC Strategies helped develop the criteria for a contract that they ultimately won.
Does the witness believe that any company that participates in developing criteria should withdraw from a call for tenders?
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- Apr/17/24 4:09:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have a very difficult time accepting that answer and believing that answer to be the truth.
The other question of substance that I believe we are here to seek an answer to is with regard to which government official Mr. Firth discussed the criteria for a contract that was eventually awarded to him. I believe he has provided that name as being Diane Daly.
Can Mr. Firth confirm that this is indeed the government official with whom he discussed the contract criteria?
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- Apr/17/24 4:11:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the RFP for the contract in question had over 220 requirements involved. We offered up three suggestions, with which PSPC still deemed 40 qualified vendors could respond to, and of which 10 showed interest. I do not see that as overly restrictive.
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- Apr/17/24 4:11:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, both the Auditor General and the procurement ombudsman found that the criteria for that contract were set in such a restrictive way that only GC Strategies could have been selected as the successful bidder.
Does Mr. Firth not agree that this process is profoundly unfair?
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- Apr/17/24 4:39:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the allegations regarding the Botler résumés were on a contract that had already been awarded, so these were task authorizations. No contracts would have been decided either way by these résumés. It was one business.
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- Apr/17/24 4:44:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, far be it from me to defend Canada's Parliament, an institution to which I hope one day Quebec will no longer have to answer. Nevertheless, I must defend the principles behind this Parliament, in particular respect for democratic institutions, and therefore of the parliamentary democracy in which Quebec participates.
A few weeks ago, the Office of the Auditor General submitted a report on the management of the ArriveCAN app. To quote the Auditor General, management of the app was the worst she had seen in her career. The ArriveCAN app was supposed to cost $80,000 and ended up costing $60 million. In the same report, we learned that one company composed of two people, the owner of which is here today, pocketed more than $19 million. That company is GC Strategies.
We also learned that the ArriveCAN affair is only the tip of the iceberg. The comptroller general recently revealed that GC Strategies, and its ancestor Coredal Systems Consulting, have obtained contracts totalling $108 million since 2011. Manual searches could reveal other contracts, so it might be even more than $108 million.
We learned in the Auditor General's report and from several witnesses that the witness here today, Mr. Kristian Firth, and public servants participated in whisky tastings, dinners, golf tournaments and dozens of other events. It is normal and healthy in a self-respecting democracy that the parliamentarians responsible for ensuring the proper functioning of the government take a closer look at what may have happened to prevent it from happening again.
That is the reason why the owners of GC Strategies were invited to testify several times in committee. Mr. Kristian Firth refused to answer several questions. He compromised parliamentarians' work by not submitting the requested documents on time. He lied to the committee. In particular, he refused to submit the list of public servants with whom he did business, a list he has just now submitted but that is incomplete based on the testimony we heard in committee.
It is clear that, if that is where we are, there are huge problems with the government's procurement processes. For almost 15 years now, it has been so difficult for companies to pass the preselection stage to do business with the government that small companies that provide no services at all are being paid a commission so that the government can enter into a contract with the company that will actually be doing the work. It is completely absurd.
Here we have a person who took advantage of our broken system and pushed it to the extreme. I will give members an example. When the Canada Border Services Agency identified KPMG as a company with which it could do business and as a company already on the list of pre-approved companies, it contacted KPMG. The contract would be pre-established. That is when a public servant at the CBSA called KPMG to tell them that there would be an intermediary in their contract. The intermediary was GC Strategies. We learned that Mr. Kristian Firth met with KPMG with respect to the contract. That is precisely the problem. Mr. Kristian Firth and his two-person company did not even provide the head-hunting service they claimed to provide. They did absolutely nothing and pocketed $84,000.
My question for Mr. Firth is as follows: Does he think that taxpayers got their money's worth for the $84,000 in this affair?
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- Apr/17/24 4:48:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the reality is that this is common practice for people with existing contracts. They get subcontractors to come through their company, because typically the time to procure directly, even if one is one of the 635 vendors who could do work with the government, takes too long. Again, I was not aware of the file and what the urgency was and the deliverables, but I did know timelines were very tight. My assumption, and again this is being speculative, was that they were leveraging the contract I had, because it needed to be done quickly.
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- Apr/17/24 4:52:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is clearly providing a service paid in kind to obtain a contract. It is the very definition of it.
Let us go on to the next question.
Mr. Firth justified his rate of $2,600 per hour by saying that he did not just work 9 to 5.
Does he think that Canadians and Quebeckers got their money's worth with the $2,600 per hour they paid for Mr. Firth's so-called huge number of hours?
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- Apr/17/24 4:58:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my first contract would have been in 2011.
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- Apr/17/24 5:03:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Office of the Procurement Ombud said that “overly restrictive”, “mandatory [solicitation] criteria...favoured [GC Strategies] for “a $25-million contract”. GC Strategies had been involved in the development of their requirements, which were included by the CBSA in a request for proposal for a contract ultimately won by Mr. Firth.
To be clear, Mr. Firth's company, GC Strategies, by evidence of the ombudsman, participated in the recommendations set out in a request for proposal to which Mr. Firth's company applied and was awarded a contract.
Does Mr. Firth understand that the Auditor General concluded in that investigation that there was no evidence to the effect that GC Strategies supplied a proposal even to get this contract?
Can Mr. Firth please explain how the information was requested, who from the CBSA requested the information related to a contract like the one they were a recipient of, and what aspects of that proposal did Mr. Firth supply for requirement?
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- Apr/17/24 5:05:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in what capacity was Mr. Firth involved in developing and contributing to the CBSA requirements for the ArriveCAN contract?
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- Apr/17/24 5:06:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I was approached in May 2021, I believe, for suggestions and understanding of what kind of requirements they would need for a team to continue the work, and I believe the contract was awarded a year later. There was no conversation between those.
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- Apr/17/24 5:22:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I got my first contract in 2011 and have done that subsequently by just responding to RFPs. It is flattering to be a recognized person who can provide requirements and help for the federal government.
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- Apr/17/24 5:23:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, again, in the testimony, they were quoting hours towards ArriveCAN. We had 22 other departments and 20 other contracts we were working on at the same time. It is impossible for me to spend 250 hours on one contract when I have to service and maintain other projects with other clients.
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- Apr/17/24 5:27:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have never amended a contract.
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- Apr/17/24 5:28:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is correct. Once the contract has been awarded, one wants to have a relationship with the client to understand if one's resources are doing a good job, or, if they are not, to try to pivot and move as fast as possible to replace them. The fact that the invitation went out and the officials showed up suggested that they followed the code of conduct and that they had already asked permission from their superiors.
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