A top Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) official told MPs that it’s “surprisingly easy” for employees at the federal agency to permanently delete emails, while responding to a question about ArriveCan emails that were allegedly destroyed by his predecessor.
CBSA Vice-President and Chief Information Officer Darryl Vleeming made the comments while appearing before the Commons public accounts committee meeting on April 3 to answer questions on ArriveCan.
Conservative MP John Nater had asked Mr. Vleeming “how easy is it to permanently delete all your emails without a trace?” in reference to allegations that former Chief Technology Officer Minh Doan deleted around 1,700 emails related to the ArriveCan app.
“It is actually surprisingly easy,” Mr. Vleeming responded.
“The reality is that Shared Services Canada is accountable for email and the policies around that, and a person can choose to delete their emails. It is retained for 30 days, where they can’t permanently delete, and after that it is deleted.”
Mr. Nater said he was “quite frankly shocked” that the federal government could not preserve Mr. Doan’s emails given the ongoing investigations around ArriveCan. “When there’s a criminal investigation ongoing and these documents simply disappear, I think that’s incredibly concerning,” he said.
The CBSA has been conducting its own internal investigation of ArriveCan, which Mr. Vleeming said includes attempts to recover the deleted emails. The RCMP has also confirmed it is currently investigating the ArriveCan app.
The ArriveCan app was developed during the pandemic to check the COVID-19 vaccination status of travellers entering Canada. It has come under controversy in recent months due to its staggering $59 million cost and a damning report from the auditor general that said basic management and documentation practices in its development and procurement were not followed.
Deletion of Emails
Several government committees have been investigating the ArriveCan app and have also been attempting to uncover who at the CBSA was responsible for choosing the two-person IT company GC Strategies to work on the app.GC Strategies was paid $19.1 million for its work on the ArriveCan app, but the auditor general’s investigation found little documentation to show why or how the company was chosen to work on the app.
When testifying before the government operations committee back in November 2023, Mr. Doan said he was not responsible for choosing GC Strategies to work on ArriveCan, but that he “chose a strategic direction that met our urgent needs for speed and agility at the time.”
Later on, former CBSA employees Antonio Utano and Cameron MacDonald said that Mr. Doan was responsible for choosing the company, and that he also threatened to blame them for the decision. Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Utano were both suspended from their government positions without pay in January over allegations of misconduct related to ArriveCan, and claimed this was an attempt to silence their criticism.
When Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Utano testified before the committee later in February, they also accused Mr. Doan of deleting thousands of ArriveCan-related emails as part of a coverup by senior CBSA employees. Mr. Doan has said the allegations that he purposefully deleted emails are an attempt by government employees to pin blame on him for their own actions.
Last week, MPs voted to order the disclosure of all internal federal investigations into claims that Mr. Doan destroyed 1,700 emails related to ArriveCan.
