Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much, witnesses, for being here today.
Thank you very much to the team of the Auditor General for you fantastic report.
Madame Reza, I'm glad to see you're in better health this week. Thank you very much for being here.
This has not been a good week so far for the Liberal government. In the meeting I attended yesterday, we had the Treasury Board Secretariat, including the comptroller of Canada, agreeing with the Auditor General and her report that Canadians did not receive value for money for their app.
I was very proud of my team, which pushed on the issue of the government employee who received $8 million for ArriveCAN while working in the public service at the same time. That should never have happened. I was also proud of the motion passed yesterday by my team, with the support of the committee, to ensure that we are aware of all of the public servants who might potentially be in conflicts of interest with their role in serving the Canadian people. We have a wonderful public service, but of course, we must always ensure that there is no conflict of interest.
This has not been a good week for the Liberal government and arrive scam. This is evidenced by the media reports today, unfortunately, of government members being triggered by the use of the words “arrive scam”.
Today, I'm going to focus my questions on the national security exemptions.
We have determined already that there was no value for money for Canadians. Now I would like to turn to another important aspect, which is the national security exemptions. In April 2020, your department invoked the national security exemptions to grant GC Strategies—a company that, I should add, should be entirely banned from contracting with the Government of Canada—a $13.9-million uncompetitive contract on behalf of the CBSA.
Why did your department feel that GC Strategies was the only company able to complete the work necessary on ArriveCAN for such a significant amount of money?