Border Employee Confused by Admonishment from ArriveCan Contractor Implicating Her

August 7, 2024 TruthUSA

Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) employee Diane Daly states that she is puzzled about why ArriveCan contractor Kristian Firth mentioned her during April parliamentary committee hearings regarding the ArriveCan investigation, as she played no part in setting the contract criteria.

“I did not have an in-person meeting with Mr. Firth and only communicated virtually due to the pandemic,” Daly explained during her testimony in front of the House Public Accounts Committee on Aug. 7.

“My responsibilities were administrative, involving coordinating information for various stakeholders. I don’t recall discussing IT requirements with Mr. Firth,” she added.

The ArriveCan app, which was utilized to monitor the COVID-19 vaccination status of travelers during the pandemic, had a development cost of $59.5 million. Auditor General Karen Hogan found that the app did not provide value for the taxpayers’ money spent on it.

Hogan’s report also highlighted poor record-keeping in the app’s development, which resulted in an uncertain determination of the full cost of the app.

Firth and his partner Darren Anthony, whose company GC Strategies received approximately $19.1 million for their work on the app, disregarded two summons to testify before the government operations committee in late 2023 and early 2024. They also failed to respond to several questions. In April, Firth was reprimanded when called before the House of Commons.

When questioned about the government officials GC Strategies collaborated with to establish criteria for ArriveCan, Firth mentioned Daly’s name as one of the employees involved.

Daly clarified that she would not have been tasked with developing the contract requirements and would have forwarded any information from Firth to the CBSA’s IT team.

Daly also raised concerns about GC Strategies’ “very poor documentation, submission errors, and delays in resolving the errors.” She mentioned dealing with Firth regarding inaccurate invoices.

Encouraged to Provide False Testimony

During her opening statement to the committee, Daly expressed that she had been restricted from speaking the truth for quite some time and feared losing her job if she did so to MPs. She disclosed that some of her superiors at the CBSA instructed her to provide false testimony to an internal investigator, leading to her placement on administrative leave.

Earlier this year, former CBSA employees Cameron MacDonald and Antonio Utano were suspended without pay from their federal government positions due to allegations of misconduct related to ArriveCan. The two men claimed that the allegations were meant to intimidate and silence their criticism of the CBSA concerning ArriveCan.

Utano and MacDonald stated that their supervisor Minh Doan chose GC Strategies to work on ArriveCan, while Doan denied these claims and accused the two men.

Daly informed the committee that she did not witness Utano or MacDonald engaging in any suspicious activities and could not confirm if Doan was responsible for selecting GC Strategies.

She also mentioned that senior management and political employees had been inciting conflicts among federal government workers to fabricate false allegations and divert investigations, likening it to making a malicious 911 call against a colleague.

“My job is at risk for what I observed, not for what I did,” she concluded.

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