Former Border Services VP says he never approved off-site hospitality with ArriveCan contractor

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Former Canada Border Services Agency vice-president Minh Doan told MPs Wednesday that he never approved off-site hospitality provided to his team members by GCStrategies, the main private contractor on the ArriveCan project – meetings that are at the centre of allegations of cozy ties between contractors and public servants.

However, he later acknowledged that he personally accepted a dinner in a group setting at a conference in Washington paid for by another ArriveCan contractor, Amazon Web Services, that he did not disclose.

“It is something I regret,” he said. “I should not have accepted that dinner and I should have disclosed it.” The date of the dinner was not mentioned.

Mr. Doan’s latest testimony before the government operations committee added to the layers of direct contradictions between his version of events around ArriveCan and those of his two former staff members – Cameron MacDonald and Antonio Utano.

He appeared late Wednesday before the Commons committee on government operations, which has held months of hearings into how the cost of the app grew from an initial $80,000 for the first version to an estimated $59.5-million.

The parliamentary focus on ArriveCan has served as a microcosm of broader issues related to the billions of dollars spent each year by Ottawa on outside consultants, spending that has increased significantly in recent years.

Auditor-General Karen Hogan sharply criticized the lack of oversight related to ArriveCan in a report released in February and she found similar problems in a report released this week on federal contracting with McKinsey & Company. Ms. Hogan said this week that the findings suggest situations in which public servants responsible for awarding contracts are not following the rules could be widespread.

Members of Parliament have heard conflicting testimony as to who is ultimately responsible for selecting the two-person company GCStrategies as the main private contractor on ArriveCan. GCStrategies has said it does not perform IT work itself. Instead, it subcontracts the work to other individuals and companies and charges a fee of between 15 and 30 per cent of the contract value.

Mr. Doan has insisted that he approved only a high-level plan to rely on a mix of border agency staff and outsourced IT workers and that it was his team that decided to select GCStrategies as the provider of those private-sector individuals.

Two officials who were on his team at the time – Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Utano – have told MPs that it was Mr. Doan who made the decision.

Mr. Doan said affidavits filed in Federal Court by Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Utano show they selected GCStrategies, but Chris Spiteri, a lawyer representing the two men, provided The Globe with a copy of the affidavit that shows Mr. MacDonald said Mr. Doan made the decision.

Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Utano also told MPs in February that Mr. Doan approved their offsite meetings with GCStrategies, as well as a virtual whisky tasting organized by GCStrategies managing partner Kristian Firth to mark the app’s one-year anniversary.

They also said Mr. Doan lied to MPs.

“Minh Doan has completely lied to Canadians on multiple fronts,” Mr. MacDonald told MPs during the February appearance in which he also accused Mr. Doan of having a “fake heart attack.” He later apologized for the heart attack comment.

Mr. Doan told MPs Wednesday he did not approve those meetings with GCStrategies. He said it was Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Utano who selected GCStrategies and they are lying.

Mr. Doan, who is on health leave from his position as the federal government’s chief technology officer, also described Mr. MacDonald’s comments about his health as “extremely hurtful.”

“To sit here and imply that I faked a heart attack, I would say that’s the most extreme version of lying that I can think of,” he said.

Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Utano were suspended without pay in January in connection with an internal investigation by the CBSA into allegations of misconduct related to interactions with GCStrategies. The two men have said their suspensions are a form of retaliation because they spoke out against border agency leadership. Their lawyer has said they’ve had their pay reinstated.

Mr. MacDonald is an assistant deputy minister at Health Canada and Mr. Utano is a director-general at the Canada Revenue Agency.

The two men asked the Federal Court to scrap the agency review and order a new review by an independent third-party investigator. Justice Russel Zinn ruled last week that the request to the court was premature given that the two men have yet to exhaust existing avenues for filing internal complaints.

Conservative MPs asked Mr. Doan Wednesday to comment on a 2022 text exchange between him and Mr. MacDonald that Mr. MacDonald provided to MPs. In the exchange about a coming committee appearance, Mr. Doan writes that his issue is “what I want to say vs what I can say” and that he can’t throw the Public Health Agency of Canada “under the bus” and can’t “throw ministers under the bus.”

“Ministers were not involved and I can’t throw people under the bus,” Mr. Doan replied Wednesday when asked about the texts. “That goes against my integrity and approach.”

Mr. Doan has previously appeared before MPs in October and November to answer questions on ArriveCan, but it is the first time that he’s answered questions since the release of February’s Auditor-General’s report on ArriveCan. He said Wednesday he accepts the auditor’s findings.

It is also the first time he has appeared since Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Utano’s February testimony, where they also alleged, without providing evidence, that Mr. Doan had destroyed government records.

Mr. Doan denied that he deliberately destroyed e-mails. However, he acknowledges that e-mail files stored on his laptop were corrupted when he attempted to move them to a new laptop.

The CBSA has said an internal review is looking into allegations of deleted e-mails.