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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 301

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 17, 2024 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 301 - Apr/17/24
Mr. Kristian Firth
  • Apr/17/24 3:49:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, can I get clarification? Is that period, or during the ArriveCAN application?
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Context: House Hansard - 301 - Apr/17/24
Mr. Kristian Firth
  • Apr/17/24 3:58:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I understand the question. I am not sure we are recognized as a benchmark. We were in a good position to respond and help with the ArriveCAN application, with having resources already on the ground and already having them CBSA security-cleared, which, in itself, takes a long time. However, that is not typical. At that point, I believe we beat out competition from two to three other firms. Members heard in testimony recently from AWS, Microsoft and BDO that they did not have the capacity to build the app. Although I understand it may look like we are the benchmark, we are not recognized as the benchmark with the federal government.
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Context: House Hansard - 301 - Apr/17/24
Mr. Kristian Firth
  • Apr/17/24 4:04:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, from previous testimony that came from Amazon and Microsoft last week, I believe it is common practice to offer suggestions, because typically clients are not always best informed when it comes to writing RFPs or putting requirements together, whether it is cloud computing for Amazon or Microsoft. It is common for government officials or technical resources to ask for specific suggestions, understanding what skill sets and what technologies they would have to be privy with to be working on an application or working on projects.
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Context: House Hansard - 301 - Apr/17/24
Mr. Kristian Firth
  • Apr/17/24 4:12:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I do not think I can, to be honest. I do not know the allegations and accusations around the ArriveCAN app. We used the first three national security exemption contracts. Actually, only two of them, the first and the third, were used to build the ArriveCAN application. I am not being disrespectful. I may not understand the question, but I think I am answering it honestly.
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Context: House Hansard - 301 - Apr/17/24
Mr. Kristian Firth
  • Apr/17/24 4:16:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we were the 24%; we were not the 76%. We did recruit over 50 people to work on the ArriveCAN application and over 100 people in totality at CBSA. The answer is that we did as we were told. We invoiced monthly. At any time, we could have been stopped. This was not that we were given $20 million and then walked away to build an app. This was not our app. We were paid to recruit and find the resources who built the app within 20 days and did subsequent new releases for 18 months on time and on budget.
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Context: House Hansard - 301 - Apr/17/24
Mr. Kristian Firth
  • Apr/17/24 5:00:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I believe that the team we put forward, again, as attested to by AWS, Microsoft and BDO, were the only ones at that point that had the capacity to build this application, so I would say yes.
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Context: House Hansard - 301 - Apr/17/24
Mr. Kristian Firth
  • Apr/17/24 5:37:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Botler contract was in no way related to the ArriveCAN application. Furthermore, I made a margin of zero dollars on the Botler opportunity.
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