Civil servant involved in ArriveCan project denies accusations he lied to committee, deleted emails

One of the key public servants surrounding the ArriveCan controversy is refuting accusations that he lied to MPs about his involvement in selecting an outside contractor for the project.

Minh Doan, a former Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) employee, appeared before the House of Commons government operations committee on Wednesday night.

The RCMP have been investigating GC Strategies, one of the main contractors for the ArriveCan project.

Doan maintained that he was not the one who brought GC Strategies, despite previous testimony that it was he who selected the company. He said he was given two options for the project and selected a specific direction, but that GC Strategies wasn't specifically mentioned in options that were presented to him.

"I did not decide on a company," he said. "[The] proposal contained only technical information and did not include any information regarding GC Strategies. They were never mentioned, nor did I make any decision to specifically engage them."

This is the first time that Doan has appeared at the committee since the release of an auditor general report in February that said the ArriveCan project's final cost was 'impossible to determine' due to poor government record-keeping.

Auditor General Karen Hogan's best estimate of the total cost is just under $60 million. She said the government's over-reliance on outside contractors contributed to the ballooning costs.

Hogan's report also raised concerns about CBSA officials having a close relationship with certain contractors, noting that the officials in question were invited "to dinners and other activities."

WATCH | AG Karen Hogan's report puts ArriveCan on blast: 

GC Strategies received roughly $19 million for ArriveCan — more than any other company — according to the auditor general, though the firm has disputed that number.

Two other former CBSA employees, Antonio Utano and Cameron MacDonald, have appeared a number of times at the government operations committee in recent months. They claimed that Doan, their superior at the time, was the one who selected GC Strategies for the project.

"Minh Doan has completely lied to Canadians," MacDonald said in February.

But Doan suggested Wednesday that it was MacDonald and Utano who were being untruthful.

"Who had a relationship with GC Strategies dating back years before the pandemic? That clearly was not me," he said.

Doan pointed to affidavits that MacDonald and Utano have filed in Federal Court in recent months that suggest they had put forward GC Strategies as an option for ArriveCan.

"The CBSA internal group, of which Utano was part, reviewed six or seven pre-qualified companies, and ultimately recommended GC Strategies as the solution," reads MacDonald's affidavit, a copy of which has been obtained by CBC.

The affidavit goes on to say that MacDonald later put forward Deloitte as another alternative, but that Doan selected GC Strategies as the final option.

The auditor general couldn't determine which government official made the final decision to initially select GC Strategies for ArriveCan.

Doan, Utano and MacDonald had all switched to different governmental departments after the development of the app.

Questions surrounding emails

During some of his previous testimony, MacDonald also accused Doan of having deleted emails related to ArriveCan.

On Wednesday, Doan denied having purposefully deleted emails. He said technical issues with his work computer resulted in some emails being corrupted.

Conservative MP Michael Barrett found that suggestion hard to believe: "It seems incredible to believe that that's the story that you'd have us accept," he said.

But Doan argued that emails should still exist somewhere on government servers and in other employees' inboxes.

"The fact that there was corruption of files ... it doesn't mean that those emails don't exist any longer. All those emails exist in email boxes of all those who received emails from me," he said in French.

Multiple investigations launched

In February, the information commissioner launched an investigation into the alleged "destruction of records" related to ArriveCan.

The CBSA has been conducting an internal investigation of the ArriveCan contracts. Agency president Erin O'Gorman told the House government operations committee in January that the investigation's "preliminary statement of facts" caused her great concern.

O'Gorman said the investigation found "a pattern of persistent collaboration between certain officials and GC Strategies. They show efforts to circumvent or ignore established procurement processes and roles and responsibilities."

Utano and MacDonald were suspended from the civil service after O'Gorman received the initial report, but both have disputed its findings.

"The reality is, this document is nothing more than a collection of baseless accusations unsupported by any corroborating evidence, accusations of wrongdoing supported by cherry-picked emails and calendar entries. It should be called the preliminary statement of falsehoods," MacDonald told the committee in February.

Utano and MacDonald have claimed they were scapegoated after telling the committee that Doan had lied to the committee.

Canada's public sector integrity commissioner has launched an investigation into both the management of ArriveCan and into Utano's and MacDonald's suspensions.