OGGO Committee Report

On Monday, October 17, 2022, the committee agreed, pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(c), to undertake a study of the ArriveCAN application.

In the course of this study, the committee chose to invite Kristian Firth and Darren Anthony to appear before it.

The committee reports the following facts to the House:

1. On November 2, 2023, and February 9, 2024, summons adopted by the Standing Committee on Government operations and Estimates (OGGO) were issued to the owners of GC Strategies, Kristian Firth and Darren Anthony. They have refused to testify before committee.
   
   
2. The Auditor General revealed that GC Strategies might have received nearly 20 millions dollars in government contracts for the ArriveCAN application.
   
   
3. The data on the open government website is said to be subject to errors, which casts further doubt on the amounts that GC Strategies, in particular, might have received in government contracts since 2015.
   
   
4. An RCMP investigation is currently taking place, notably implicating the owners of GC Strategies

Additionally,

(A) According to BOSC, Marc and GAGNON, André, House of Commons Procedure and Practice, Third edition, 2017, p. 137, “If a witness declines an invitation to appear, the committee may issue a summons to the witness by adopting a motion to that effect. If the witness still refuses to appear, the committee may report the matter to the House and the House then may order the witness to appear. If the witness disobeys the order, the witness may be declared guilty of contempt.”

1. Still according to BOSC, Marc and GAGNON, André, House of Commons Procedure and Practice, Third edition, 2017, p. 81 “The rationale of the power to punish contempts, whether contempt of court or contempt of the Houses, is that the courts and the two Houses should be able to protect themselves from acts which directly or indirectly impede them in the performance of their functions 118.”

i. BOSC, Marc and GAGNON, André, House of Commons Procedure and Practice, Third edition, 2017, note 119: “The House itself decides how to respond to findings of contempt.”

Therefore, in order to see the witnesses in committee to testify, the committee suggests the following:

1. The committee recommends that an Order of the House be issued requiring Kristian Firth and Darren Anthony each to appear before the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates at dates and times determined by the Chair of the committee, but within twenty-one (21) days of the adoption of this Order and with such accessibility accommodations the witnesses may request and the Chair agree to arrange.
   
   
2. After those twenty-one (21) days, if the Chair of the committee informs the Speaker and the Sergeant at Arms in writing that one or both have failed to appear as ordered,
   1. the Sergeant at Arms shall take Kristian Firth, Darren Anthony or both of them, as the case may be, into his custody for the purposes of enforcing their attendance before the committee at dates and times determined by the Chair of the committee, for which the Speaker shall issue his warrant accordingly;
      
      
   2. the Sergeant at Arms shall discharge from his custody a witness taken into his custody, pursuant to paragraph (a), upon (i) a decision of the committee releasing the witness from further attendance, or (ii) a further Order of the House to that effect; and
      
      
   3. the Speaker shall inform the House, at the earliest opportunity, of developments in this regard.

Your committee feels it is their duty to place these matters before the House at this time since a question of privilege may be involved and to give the House an opportunity to reflect on these matters.