Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) President Erin O’Gorman could not account for the disappearance of federal documents related to the $59.5 million ArriveCan program Tuesday, according to Blacklock's Reporter.While the Conservative and Bloc Québécois committee members said this was a "possible criminal act" that required thorough investigation, the Liberal perspective was it's "human nature" to have some "bad apples" within any organization. In a report released Monday, Auditor General Karen Hogan said paperwork tracking millions in payments to ArriveCan contractors had vanished. Two former CBSA executives have been suspended without pay. O’Gorman, annual salary $296,000, told the Commons Public Accounts Committee CBSA was investigating the disappearance of emails involving the Trudeau’s Liberal’s sweetheart contracting deal, but refused to disclose who was responsible for handling the documents. “The lack of documentation is difficult to understand,” said O’Gorman, who noted she was appointed by the Trudeau Liberals to be president of CBSA in 2022 after ArriveCan contracts were let. “We have received allegations that emails were deleted,” said O’Gorman. “Those allegations were provided to our director of security. There is an investigation.”“If there is wrongdoing it needs to be found out,” O’Gorman added.“Who within the Canada Border Services Agency was responsible for collecting and storing those documents?” asked Committee Chair Conservative MP Kelly McCauley.O’Gorman did not reply.“How did no one catch it?” asked McCauley. “That is what I am trying to figure out,” replied O’Gorman.“Most concerning was that the Canada Border Services Agency did not have complete and accurate financial records,” said Hogan. “Because of this we were unable to calculate the exact cost of the ArriveCan app.”Liberal MP Brenda Shanahan told the committee ArriveCan irregularities went beyond routine “padding” in federal contracts. “Typically what do we see in any kind of big project?” she said. “It’s padding the invoices and so on. But here we didn’t even have details on the invoices to begin with.”“We know human nature,” Shanahan continued. “In any organization you are going to have, yes, some bad apples. We need to understand.”The flippant “bad apple” analogy did not go over well with Bloc Québécois MP Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné.“We are looking at possible criminal acts here,” said Sinclair-Desgagné. “It’s not a couple of bad apples. It is a generalized attitude within an Agency that lives off the public purse.”“Were other people suspended, laid off or fired?” asked Sinclair-Desgagné, referring to the two federal executives already suspended. “We have taken action on founded allegations,” replied O’Gorman. “We have taken disciplinary action but I am not going to speak to specific actions and specific individuals.”“How many employees were disciplined?” asked MP Sinclair-Desgagné. “I don’t know, there are many employees implicated,” replied O’Gorman. “I share your disappointment that there is such a lack of documentation.”Auditor General Hogan said Tuesday while federal auditors were looking into the papertrail of the ArriveCan program, “we found disappointing failures and omissions everywhere we looked.”
