44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 17, 2024 02:00PM
- Apr/17/24 3:45:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, for how many contracts did GC Strategies copy and paste the exact same information?
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- Apr/17/24 3:47:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, GC Strategies is two guys in a basement taking 30% commissions on multi-million dollar contracts that they add no value to, but they have endorsements from senior NDP-Liberal government officials.
On the endorsements, who was the Government of Canada chief information officer who offered a quote?
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- Apr/17/24 3:47:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, GC Strategies is two guys in a basement taking 30% commissions on multi-million dollar contracts that they add no value to, but they have endorsements from senior NDP-Liberal government officials. On—
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- Apr/17/24 3:48:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this company has done no work on the multi-million dollar contracts it has been given by the Liberal government, supported by the NDP. On the endorsements on the company's website, who was the Government of Canada chief information officer who provided an endorsement?
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- Apr/17/24 3:49:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is the subcontractors used on Government of Canada contracts.
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- Apr/17/24 3:49:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, every company that we represent and we work with for government contracts have valid Canadian security clearances.
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- Apr/17/24 3:50:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the procurement ombudsman found that 76% of resources named in bids on the ArriveCAN contracts did no work and were switched out for other companies. He termed this “bait and switch”, which is often used to sub out expensive subcontractors for cheaper ones, allowing the middlemen to take home more profit.
Did Mr. Firth switch out any of his proposed resources on the ArriveCAN application contracts?
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- Apr/17/24 3:51:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, through you, has Mr. Firth ever engaged in bait and switch in any of his contracts with the Government of Canada?
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- Apr/17/24 3:57:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I believe I understood the question.
There is a series of things. There is building a network, which can be, just through years of experience, working with clients, working with resources, understanding their skill sets, understanding their availability and understanding what their per diems are. There are a lot of things that have to be put into place to understand if somebody is perfect for a role. Again, do they have the right experience? Do they have the right skill set? On top of that, as well, is understanding how they respond to RFPs. We are a small shop. I mean, I do not think that is a surprise to anybody here.
Myself and my business partner, we had to understand how to look for RFPs on Buyandsell.gc.ca, how to respond to them, how to recruit for them and how to fulfill our obligations once the contracts have been awarded. Then there is invoicing and time sheets, everything that goes from a 360° desk.
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- Apr/17/24 4:00:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, so, if I understand correctly, the first contracts he received, he received them before he even knew exactly how it all worked. If I remember correctly, these first contracts were awarded back in 2015, when GC Strategies was founded. Despite not knowing exactly how it all worked, he managed to get contracts.
I would like to understand that.
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- Apr/17/24 4:01:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, does the witness believe that civil servants in general, and those working on ArriveCAN in particular, followed the rules, procedures and policies related to their strategic and privileged position within the government apparatus when negotiating the contracts his company won?
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- Apr/17/24 4:02:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, does the witness believe that public servants complied with the rules, procedures and policies related to their strategic and privileged position within the government apparatus in negotiating contracts for GC Strategies?
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- 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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- Apr/17/24 4:15:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, earlier, Mr. Firth said that no one has asked him to pay back the commission that he earned.
Given that the Auditor General found the government overpaid for the ArriveCAN app, that the app itself did not work and sent thousands to quarantine incorrectly, that the Auditor General has called the record-keeping around those contracts some of the worst that she has ever seen, that 76% of the subcontractors did zero or little work, that GC Strategies bills itself as a recruitment firm but does not recruit, and that Mr. Firth took $2.5 million in commission for very little work, will he give that money back?
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- Apr/17/24 4:36:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, with Mr. Girard's position, and I had two contracts within his directorate, it was just understanding how the contracts were going, thanking me, thinking the resources were performing well, understanding if there were any issues and just general chief information officer duties.
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- Apr/17/24 4:36:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, at that time, it was very similar to Mr. Girard. We had contracts within Mr. Johnston's department. I think it was just a health check on the contracts, making sure that my resources were performing. If they were not, then they would let me know this and we would replace them.
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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 4:49:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what we heard in committee is that the public servants did everything they could to make sure the contracts were awarded quickly. That is why many contracts were awarded non-competitively. Once again, we are hearing contradictory testimony.
According to Mr. Firth, why did the public servant agree to simply pick up the phone and call KPMG to tell them that there would be an intermediary and that that intermediary would be paid $84,000 to do absolutely nothing? Why does he think the public servant did that?
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