Two federal employees who previously worked at the Canada Border Service Agency (CBSA) have been suspended without pay over allegations of misconduct related to the ArriveCan app. The employees allege the allegations are an attempt at “intimidation” to silence their criticism.
Health Canada assistant deputy minister Cameron MacDonald, in a letter to the House of Commons Committee on Government Operations (OGGO), said the action taken against him and Antonio Utano is “Kafkaesque madness” that was damaging to their professional reputations, careers, families, and health.
Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Utano, a director-general at the Canada Revenue Agency, worked together at the CBSA on the ArriveCan app, which was used to track the COVID-19 vaccination status of travellers entering Canada. The app, which ended up costing more than $54 million, is currently under investigation by both OGGO and Canada’s auditor general. Mr. MacDonald wrote that their suspensions were a “campaign of intimidation” meant to muzzle both him and Mr. Utano.
“The CBSA internal investigation is being conducted in a remarkably unusual manner,” Mr. MacDonald said in a Jan. 10 letter obtained by The Globe and Mail. “To this day, and despite several attempts, Mr. Utano and I have not been presented with anything other than bald accusations of wrongdoing.” “Instead, we have received threats that if we don’t participate in the investigation that a decision will still be made without our input and that ‘it is in our best interest to participate,'” he added.Botler AI Allegations
Back in October 2023, the co-founders of Montreal-based Botler AI, Ritika Dutt and Amir Morv, told OGGO they came to Mr. Utano with allegations of contracting misconduct related to ArriveCan in 2021, and then went to more senior CBSA officials in November 2022. The co-founders told OGGO that after Mr. MacDonald urged them to work with GC Strategies on a separate project, they discovered the contract for their work was being run through another company called Dalian without informing them.
GC Strategies was hired by the federal government to build the ArriveCan app, but subcontracted the work to six other companies.
Mr. Morv told MPs he had concerns that vulnerabilities in the federal government’s procurement regime were being systematically exploited, allowing tax dollars to be funnelled into private entities that “lie outside of public purview.” He also alleged contractors were engaging in various criminal activities, including openly committing fraud on the government by “promising influence and requesting material benefit” in exchange.
In their report to senior CBSA leadership in November 2022, Mr. Morv and Ms. Dutt questioned why the CBSA did not directly hire Botler AI for their work, instead relying on private IT consultants. They also asked why their work experience had been inflated in resumes submitted to the federal government.
In November 2023
testimony before OGGO, GC Strategies Managing Partner Kristian Firth admitted he had inflated the work experience of Mr. Morv and Ms. Dutt to fit an “evaluation matrix” of scores needed to be compliant in a certain category of government contracts, but that he had submitted the wrong resume versions to the government.
Several MPs expressed disbelief at the explanation, with Conservative MP Garnett Genuis describing Mr. Firth as “without a doubt, the least believable witness I have ever had appear before a parliamentary committee.”
‘Threats’ Toward Mr. MacDonald
When testifying before OGGO, Mr. MacDonald denied any wrongdoing
and accused former CBSA vice-president Minh Doan, now the chief technology officer for the government of Canada, of lying when he told the committee in October he didn’t know how GC Strategies was selected to work on ArriveCan.
“Everyone knows it. We have our team here behind us. Everybody knew it was his decision to make. It wasn’t mine,” Mr. MacDonald said, adding that Mr. Doan told him the company Deloitte could not be hired to develop ArriveCan because it was in the “penalty box” due to an IT project that was late and over budget.
In November, Mr. Doan
told the committee he did not specifically choose GC Strategies, but decided on the “strategic direction that met our urgent needs for speed and agility at the time,” which involved partially outsourcing the app’s development to private contractors.
Mr. MacDonald also accused Mr. Doan of
threatening to blame him for the decision to hire GC Strategies during a phone call. Mr. Doan denied the allegations.
The OGGO hearings will resume on Jan. 17, with Vaughn Brennan, a consultant who worked with Botler and GC Strategies, scheduled to appear. On Jan. 18, MPs on the committee will also hear again from current CBSA president Erin O’Gorman and former CBSA president John Ossowski.
Spokespeople for the CBSA and Health Canada declined to comment on the employment status of Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Utano.
