Former Border Agency Director Accuses President of Misleading MPs on ArriveCan

A Canada Border Services Agency patch is seen on an officer in Calgary on Aug. 1, 2019. The Canadian Press/Jeff McIntosh/

A government employee suspended over misconduct allegations linked to ArriveCan has accused the Canada Border Services Agency’s (CBSA) president of lying to a parliamentary committee about not knowing who chose GC Strategies to work on the app.

“Even [President] Erin O'Gorman pretended that she didn’t know who selected GC Strategies, yet she was briefed on it,” former CBSA Director Cameron MacDonald told the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates (OGGO) on Feb. 22.

Mr. MacDonald said Ms. O'Gorman’s testimony notes for OGGO showed former CBSA Vice-President Minh Doan and former President John Ossowski were responsible for choosing GC Strategies.

Conservative MP Larry Brock asked Mr. MacDonald if Ms. O'Gorman lied to the committee when she said she had “no responsibility or no knowledge” about who chose GC strategies to work on ArriveCan. Mr. MacDonald replied that she had indeed lied.

During an earlier meeting at which Ms. O'Gorman testified, Mr. Brock read an access-to-information request that said Mr. Ossowski and Mr. Doan made the decision to pursue a contract with GC Strategies because their proposal aligned with the CBSA’s objectives.

“Why are you lying to committee?” Mr. Brock asked the CBSA president during the Feb. 13 session.

“I would like to confirm the allegations are not against me. This is not the first time that I’ve been accused of that. I have told the truth, and I continue to tell the truth ... I wasn’t at CBSA when the decision was taken about GC Strategies,” said Ms. O'Gorman.

The Epoch Times reached out to Ms. O'Gorman for comment but didn’t hear back by publication time.

The question of who hired GC Strategies to work on the $59.5 million ArriveCan app has been central to OGGO’s investigation, with the committee receiving conflicting reports on who was behind the decision. Both Mr. Doan and Mr. Ossowski told the committee on Oct. 24, 2023, they didn’t know who hired GC Strategies.

Mr. Macdonald said on Nov. 7, 2023, that not only did Mr. Doan make the decision to hire GC Strategies, but he also threatened to blame the decision on Mr. MacDonald and CBSA employee Antonio Utano.

Auditor General Karen Hogan’s report on ArriveCan, released Feb. 12, found the CBSA did not support the selection of GC Strategies with “a sound justification,” and that records showing who made the final decision to select the company were missing.

‘Clear Evidence of Bias’

Mr. MacDonald told the committee Feb. 22 the preliminary statement of facts from CBSA’s internal investigation was manipulated to serve as evidence against him.

“The reality is this document is nothing more than a collection of baseless accusations, unsupported by any corroborating evidence, accusations of wrongdoing, supported by cherry-picked emails and calendar entries,” he said. “It should be called the preliminary statement of falsehoods.”

Mr. Utano, who also appeared before the committee, said there was “clear evidence of bias” in the CBSA’s internal investigation into ArriveCan, and questioned why he and Mr. MacDonald had been suspended without pay when other government employees charged with criminal offences had been suspended with pay.

“In the employment world, this is just short of capital punishment. All we did was expose the fact that parliamentarians have been misled,” he said. “They crafted a document that was designed to show us in the worst possible light, and they were successful.”

Mr. MacDonald initially said they were not given a chance to give their side of the story on the internal CBSA investigation, but later told NDP MP Taylor Bachrach they were invited to participate, but wanted the agency to disclose more information before they sat down for an interview.

Under questioning by Conservative MP Michael Barrett, Mr. MacDonald also accused Mr. Doan of deleting emails related to ArriveCan. According to an internal complaint filed by a CBSA employee, Mr. Doan allegedly moved data files that led to them being lost. Mr. Doan later told The Globe and Mail he had not purposely destroyed any emails.

“Minh Doan has deleted emails, and we did not have our accounts locked down until after we testified [before OGGO], and we are very concerned that our emails have been deleted because they won’t give us records of who has accessed our emails,” Mr. MacDonald said, adding there was “the potential” of a coverup within the CBSA.

“We’re just trying to get the right information,” Mr. MacDonald said. “We’re trying to have transparency and now, after everything has happened, we want independence from what the CBSA has done.”