Treasury Board President Anita Anand said the federal government intends to recoup funds from GC Strategies, a company at the centre of the ArriveCan scandal.
“There’s an ongoing RCMP investigation, and we intend to recoup all funds ... once that investigation is concluded,” Ms. Anand said at the Public Accounts Committee on April 18.
“The departments are recording receivables in their accounts, and that may include overpayments and erroneous payments,” she added. “We will always safeguard taxpayer dollars, that’s what we do at the Treasury Board of Canada.”
Speaking during Question Period earlier in the day, Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc said the government would recover the money. “Of course, the government will always seek to recover taxpayers money' that was spent inappropriately,” he said.
Ms. Anand refused to say whether GC Strategies had already been asked to return the funds. When GC Strategies Managing Partner Kristian Firth appeared before the House of Commons a day earlier, he said his company had not been asked to pay any money back.
Mr. Firth’s company and his partner Darren Anthony received an estimated $19.1 million for work on the app, which was used to track the COVID-19 vaccination status of travellers during the pandemic. In February, the auditor general released a report that found the estimated $59.5 million app did not provide “value for taxpayer dollars spent.”
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The report also found there was poor record-keeping when it came to the app’s development, and that, as a result, the full cost of the app could not be determined with certainty. The report continued fueling concerns among MPs about the app’s exorbitant cost.
Mr. Firth Admonished in Parliament
On April 17, Mr. Firth was admonished by the speaker of the House for his failure to answer a government committee’s questions about the app. In March, Mr. Firth did not answer several questions, citing the RCMP’s ongoing investigation, despite admitting they had not contacted him about the app.
Shortly before Mr. Firth was admonished, the RCMP confirmed its Sensitive and International Investigations unit had executed a search warrant at Mr. Firth’s house in Woodlawn, Ont., a day earlier. The RCMP told The Epoch Times in a statement that the search warrant was not related to their ArriveCan investigation.
Under questioning from Conservative MPs, Mr. Firth said the RCMP had executed a search warrant in order to obtain electronic devices related to allegations by Botler AI, a tech firm that did not work on ArriveCan but was contracted for a different project through GC Strategies. Mr. Firth said he was not privy to the specific Botler allegations, but said he believed they involved “fraudulent bidding and resume fraud.”
Botler AI co-founder Amir Morv previously told a government committee that the resumes of him and his partner were altered without their permission for government task authorization. Mr. Firth had admitted to changing the resumes when submitting them to the government, but said this was an accident.
It is rare for individuals to be publicly admonished before the House. The measure has been used only five times since the early 1900s. It is even more rare for government contractors to be summoned to the Bar of the House. The last contractor to be summoned was former utility company president R.C. Miller in 1913.
“Acknowledging the fact that I’m being admonished, making history right now, I think I have acknowledged the fact that I’ve made mistakes in previous committees,” Mr. Firth told MPs.
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