Mr. Chair and honourable committee members, I am a programmer and software architect with a focus on security. As part of my expertise, I study systems to identify vulnerabilities in order to mitigate their potential exploitation.

In November 2019, we were approached by the CBSA through their operative, Kristian Firth of GC Strategies. Since then, I have been closely studying and documenting numerous vulnerabilities that we have uncovered in Canada’s procurement regime. We have also witnessed these vulnerabilities being systematically exploited by the government officials in the highest levels of the public service. From our experience, the primary objective of this exploitation is to funnel tax dollars and public funds into private entities that lie outside of public purview. Professional services contracts, which are currently the subject of several committee studies and will cost taxpayers almost $20 billion this year, are the prime targets of this exploitation.

I refer to one such scheme as “ghost contracting,” which we have observed with Botler and ArriveCAN, which is the current study of the committee. For ArriveCAN, GC Strategies was a prime contractor that received significant commissions to then subcontract the work to third party companies, which were the ghost contractors. Based on documents tabled to this committee, GC Strategies claimed that the employees of these ghost contractors were the individuals named in the tabled task authorizations, TAs. These TAs were used to bill the government. As these ghost contractors are not subject to direct government purview, there is no way to validate that the named individuals actually performed the work or are even aware that they have been named in these task authorizations.

Also, this is assuming, basically, that these are real individuals with valid security clearances and not fake profiles created for these TAs. In Botler's case, there were three levels of contracting. GC Strategies operated as the ghost contractor, and Ritika and I identified personally as sub-subcontractors. Our identities were used without our knowledge or consent by Coradix and Dalian, entities that we have never heard of.

Another critical vulnerability that I would like to bring to your attention is the fact that Botler worked on the CBSA project with no contractual or legal agreement in place with the agency or with any of the subcontractors or contractors that were involved. Despite this, we were freely given access to non-public information by the CBSA, and Botler has full legal rights to all information that we have collected for this misconduct case. Now imagine the exposure that Canada would face if a bad actor is legally given access to sensitive information through similar means. Imagine the dangers that this would pose to our country.

If procurement rules have been respected, any resource named on a project should be aware of it. They should provide their written consent or sign a contractual agreement, and they should sign an NDA. However, the biggest vulnerability that I would like to draw your attention to is the fact that these contractors are openly engaged in various criminal activities. They openly commit frauds on the government by promising influence and requesting material benefit in exchange. One thing that we have consistently observed with both our Department of Justice work and our interactions with Public Safety is that an act of misconduct rarely happens in isolation. It is almost always symptomatic of a larger existence and tolerance of misconduct. Individuals engaged in such conduct are also prime targets of exploitation and extortion.

In our interactions with GC Strategies, Mr. Firth routinely boasted that he and his friends, senior government officials with contracting authorities, have “dirt” on each other, essentially guaranteeing silence through mutually assured destruction. While external contractors are engaged in misconduct and do the actual dirty work, I want to emphasize that their conduct would not be possible without backing from factions within the government. At least in our case, their conduct was fully directed by the faction within the government that we have encountered.

Unfortunately, once we began reporting our findings, the government machine mobilized to bury Botler’s reports and protect this corruption. The most shocking response we received came from Public Services and Procurement Canada with the involvement of its legal services. PSPC stated that Canada has determined that no rules were broken. This is while the same allegations were under RCMP investigation. When the government body that has been entrusted with overseeing and spending our tax dollars decides to selectively enforce its own rules, whether wilfully or through sheer negligence, this is dangerous.

Now, the bigger question is what else PSPC has turned a blind eye to in the expenditure of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars.

Thank you.

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