Public Accounts Committee on May 14th, 2024

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

I just want to bring a little order.

[Erin O'Gorman]

The question is—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Ms. O'Gorman, hold on. I'm going to turn it back to Mr. Brock. This is his time. In this process, with other questioning, if there's something you feel you haven't been able to answer, another member can certainly turn to you; but unfortunately all members are on the clock, and they have discretion about how they would like to use that time. I know that can be frustrating, but I just want to clarify that.

Mr. Brock, you have about a minute and a half. We'll go over to you, please.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Ms. O'Gorman, you are going to table all the names of all officials at the PMO and the PCO whom you spoke to before and immediately after your committee meetings on this ArriveCAN study.

You are also going to give us details as to what you discussed, because I know there's an email from October 2022, that the PCO was very interested in the ArriveCAN study. You were cc'd, and actually there was an email directed to you regarding that, so you wanted to provide information to the PCO on the ArriveCAN study.

I find it extremely suspicious, and I'm sure Canadians do not believe you, ma'am, when you say that it was merely a coincidence, and that before and after your meeting with the PCO you did not discuss your testimony or the ArriveCAN study. We'll wait for your information to be received.

The RCMP is investigating thousands of emails deleted by Minh Doan, a former employee of the CBSA. Have you been able to recover some of those emails, yes or no?

[Erin O'Gorman]

The team is investigating the allegation. I don't think it's been established that—

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Have you recovered some of those emails, yes or no?

[Erin O'Gorman]

I don't believe it's been established that the emails were deleted.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Have you recovered some of those emails that were not provided to the RCMP or the Auditor General? Have you since found and been able to recover some of those emails?

[Erin O'Gorman]

I have not understood from either the Auditor General or the RCMP that they were not provided with emails that they were seeking.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Ma'am, there is evidence—

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

I have a point of order, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'll hear that point of order in a second.

Mr. Brock, your time is up.

I heard a point of order. Is that Ms. Khalid?

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Yes, and that's exactly the point. Mr. Brock was way over in his time.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Mr. Arya, you have the floor for five minutes, please.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Ms. O'Gorman, in your testimony you mentioned the contracts worth more than $40,000. Is that a new procedure that you mentioned?

[Erin O'Gorman]

Yes. I've established governance that any contract at CBSA that is being renewed, extended or established goes through a committee that's chaired by the executive deputy head.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

I know concerns have been raised due to this ArriveCAN scandal, but sometimes adding red tape makes life difficult for various departmental work. Sometimes, in an emergency—40,000 is a big number, I understand—in the bigger scheme of things, work needs to get done quickly. Are you adding more red tape to the approval process?

[Erin O'Gorman]

I don't see it as red tape. I see it as visibility across the organization. The committee can meet quickly if there's a need, but what I'm trying to institute at CBSA is that, as these things don't come up at the last minute, if everything is in order it's a short discussion and people proceed.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

You mentioned that you are trying to reduce the consulting footprint. That's important. I agree with that, because overreliance on consultants is not a good thing in the long run. You also mentioned that you need to transfer the knowledge to the internal team. In fact, every time a consultant is hired, part of that should be that the knowledge of this external contractor goes to the internal team, so that the expertise will become available in-house as and when needed. Obviously it has not been happening for too long a time. Is it in an informal way that you are instituting it, or is there a formal way of doing this?

[Erin O'Gorman]

Mr. Chair, to the previous question on the number of contracts, in February this year we had 243 IT consultants working in CBSA, and as of May we have 175—I undertook to get those numbers.

We are making a concerted effort to do a knowledge transfer and have a plan for all the work we are doing by virtue of having consultants there, and what the long-term plan is. We will always have consultants. It wouldn't be economical or feasible to hire across the agency all of the depth of IT talent we need. Some people we need to come in quickly. As I said, we have people who know computer languages but who don't really want to work for government. They're retired. We need their expertise. Again, there too we're looking in quite a concerted way to do a knowledge transfer and do that work ourselves.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Mr. Chair, I move to adjourn the meeting.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

There's a motion to adjourn the meeting. I'll have the clerk call the roll on that, please.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 6; nays 4)

Thank you for your extended appearance today.

This meeting is adjourned. We'll see you back here on Thursday.