Government Operations Committee on Oct. 26th, 2023

[Ritika Dutt]

When responses are being made on behalf of Canada, based on the laws and regulations PSPC has, a statement on behalf of Canada is made on behalf of the Minister of Public Services and Procurement.

We also know from different ATIPs that there were redactions regarding the involvement of ministers and ministerial staff. We cannot speak to who those ministers or ministerial staff were, because of the redactions.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

However, you know there was involvement of ministers and ministerial staff. You don't know who or how because of redactions, but you know they were involved. Is that correct?

[Ritika Dutt]

That is correct.

I believe Ms. O'Gorman said she also briefed the Minister of Public Safety, so I would assume that would be one of the individuals who would have been aware.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you.

Did you have any conversations with, send emails to or seek to notify any ministers, members of Parliament or political staff along the way?

[Ritika Dutt]

Before we reported the misconduct, I had briefed Minister Miller and Minister Lametti during a press conference on our justice work that we were working on the CBSA project. However, we did not involve ministers directly because we were already receiving responses on behalf of Canada. This would indicate that the ministers were providing the response, through the use of the term “Canada”.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Help me understand. You said you spoke to them at a press conference. Just help me understand what that interaction was like and what you said to the ministers about your concerns.

[Ritika Dutt]

There was a press conference in March 2021 for the announcement of our initiative with the Department of Justice's legal aid directorate for the citizen-facing solution. I believe it was before the press conference began. There were a few minutes, so I was chatting with both ministers. I told them, “We're working on this. We're really excited because we're working on a larger harassment solution beyond just the sexual harassment in the workplaces.”

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Okay, so just to be clear, you were notifying them of your work on the project, but you weren't at the time advising them of any specific complaint, if I understand that right. Are there points along the way at which you provided information about your complaints or your concerns about the systemic corruption issues? At what point, from what you know, would they have become aware of this?

[Ritika Dutt]

From our own communications directly, when we started submitting reports to PSPC, which was in the summer, starting from May, we started addressing Canada. When we address Canada, that means we're addressing the Minister of PSPC. That's when we started direct communications, but we believe that they had knowledge before this.

Based on what Ms. O'Gorman said, I believe it was in December or January that she told the Minister of Public Safety. We're not sure exactly when, based on the redacted ATIPs, but the timeline of that ATIP is around summer and September of 2022, so that was when the redacted minister and ministerial involvement would have been.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you.

I would like to request unredacted versions of those ATIPs for this committee. Could you just, for the benefit of the committee and the clerk, describe what those ATIPs were?

[Ritika Dutt]

Sure. I can also provide to the clerk with the ATIP numbers so that you can ask for the unredacted versions, but I believe this one specifically was an ATIP of an ATIP.

I had sent an ATIP to the CBSA asking for records of communications made by the CBSA's Diane Daly outside of a contractual relationship with us. They had refused to release the records because they stated on record that we were actually contractors, and those contracts were held. We served the parties with legal notices. They were not able to provide proof of those contracts, and because they didn't release those ATIPs, I did an ATIP on that ATIP, and that's how we were—

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Okay. Is that enough information for the clerk to make the document request? It sound like not.

Okay, so please provide us—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Who are you requesting it from? Are you requesting the emails from Ms. Dutt?

[Ritika Dutt]

I'll give you the ATIP numbers, and then you can ask for those unredacted.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Okay. We'll have to wait, I think, until we have those ATIP numbers before we make those requests, but if you provide us with the ATIP numbers, I will then seek the agreement of the committee to request the unredacted versions of those ATIPs. I hope I will have the support of the committee to work to get to the bottom of that.

Finally, this raises not just corruption concerns but also significant security concerns for me if we have ghost contractors. We don't know who they are. You have people talking back and forth about having dirt on other people. What kinds of security concerns does this raise from your perspective about Government of Canada information?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I have to be the wet blanket and say that we are out of time again.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

A brief response...?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

No. We are past time, I'm afraid.

Mr. Sousa, you have five minutes please.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you again.

Just to clarify, I know some of the correspondence and some of the discussions we're having now are about your pilot, about your work on that pilot and the work that has been contracted by CBSA through GC Strategies, if I understand you correctly. Why would you do the work without a contract?

[Ritika Dutt]

We were continuously engaged with the CBSA verbally, asking them to rework the contracting into a clean contract, and they had specifically told us they would.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Do you have correspondence between you and CBSA?

[Ritika Dutt]

Yes, and we—

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

But CBSA didn't contract you.

[Ritika Dutt]

CBSA told us that they would clean up the contracting after we raised our concerns that the contracting was not properly executed.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

This was after you provided the misconduct...?