Threats, lies, suppression of information: Two officers suspended without pay who see themselves as scapegoats for the ArrivalCAN scandal have turned their guns on the management of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA).
Cameron MacDonald and Antonio Utano were called to testify on Thursday for the second time since November and openly accused CBSA President Erin O'Gorman and former President John Ossowski of lying about the status of the “biased” internal investigation that led to her suspension.
“Dirty hands”
But they reserved the worst poison for former Vice President Minh Doan, now promoted to Director General of Technology for Canada.
“Isn’t it ironic that the people with the dirtiest hands are the ones pointing the finger at us?” said Mr. MacDonald, who was in office when the contract was awarded to GC Strategies.
According to the Globe & Mail, Mr. Doan was the subject of an internal complaint from a CBSA IT employee who accused him of deleting emails and documents that would have allowed him to solve many of the scandal's mysteries.
The mystery hovers
Despite dozens of hours of committee testimony and a report from the Auditor General, it is still difficult to confirm beyond doubt who made the final decision to turn to GC Strategies for the contract.
Mr Cameron says he has the answer: it's Minh Doan.
Mr MacDonald again accused Mr Doan of “intimidating” him when ArrivalCAN costs caused a stir in 2022.
But he went further, accusing Minh Doan of suffering a “fake heart attack” to avoid appearing before a parliamentary committee – a statement for which he apologized shortly afterwards, not without pointing to a story that, according to Reddit It was reported on the website that Mr. Doan was said to have been “completely drunk” in the office a week before his departure due to illness.
Zucchini sticks
This Kafkaesque story is mixed here and there with gifts and invitations to events before and during the execution of the contract.
These events include nachos, beers, mailed whiskey miniettes and zucchini sticks.
MM. MacDonald and Utano did not deny that they enjoyed it, but emphasized that their former boss, Minh Doan, was mainly the one who had ties to government subcontractors.
A “biased” investigation
They are now challenging the validity of this “biased” internal investigation in federal court because, they say, it is being conducted by insiders who want to protect themselves. They are calling for the investigation to be assigned to an independent, external investigator.
One of the people who led the investigation, Michel Lafleur, was involved in awarding external contracts to ArrivalCAN, according to Mr. Utano.