House Votes to Compel ArriveCan Witnesses to Testify or Face Arrest

Conservative MP Michael Barrett awaits the start of a meeting of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on Jan. 17, 2024. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)

The House of Commons has passed a Conservative-led motion authorizing the arrest of ArriveCan contractors if they fail to appear before a parliamentary committee to testify on the app.

“They have 21 days to be scheduled and appear for questioning in the House of Commons for their role in Justin Trudeau’s $60 million [ArriveCan] scandal,” Conservative MP Michael Barrett said on social media following the motion on Feb. 26.

“This is an incredible precedent, but it’s an incredible situation.”

In the House on Feb. 27, Conservative MP Kelly McCauley moved the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates adopt a report that contains the order for executives from GC Strategies to appear at committee. The House was silent when Assistant Deputy Speaker Alexandra Mendes asked if any MPs were opposed, and the motion was adopted.

The report, passed by the committee on Feb. 21, calls for Kristian Firth and Darren Anthony, the owners of GC Strategies, to appear before the committee to answer questions on the $59.5 million ArriveCan app. Conservatives on the committee accused their Liberal colleagues of filibustering to delay a vote, but the motion was ultimately passed unanimously.

If Mr. Firth and Mr. Anthony fail to appear, the sergeant-at-arms will be able to authorize their being taken into custody and compelled to testify. The last time such an action was taken was in 2007 when then-House Speaker Peter Milliken issued a subpoena to compel businessman Karlheinz Schreiber to appear before the ethics committee.

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Conservative MPs have been increasingly eager to hear from GC Strategies again following the release of the auditor general’s scathing report on ArriveCan, which said contracting and management practices around the app at several government agencies were not followed, and key records were inexplicably missing.

The report also said there was little documentation to show why GC Strategies was chosen for the project. The report estimated that managing partners Mr. Firth and Mr. Anthony were paid $19.1 million for work on the app.

Previously Summoned to Testify

While Mr. Firth has previously spoken before the Government Operations and Estimates committee on two occasions, he and Mr. Anthony have failed to abide by two summonses from the committee to testify again, sent out on Nov. 2, 2023 and Feb. 9, 2024. MPs were told that the men have “serious” mental health challenges, which have prevented them from testifying.

During a media scrum on Feb. 27, Minister of Public Services and Procurement Jean-Yves Duclos said GC Strategies was used for ArriveCan because Canada was in an “emergency context” and the government needed to work with pre-qualified companies.

“This was deemed admissible by the public servants from my department because it was an emergency situation. That said, it shouldn’t be a green light for public servants at CBSA to not properly do their work,” he said.

“This is not an excuse; this is an explanation. The relevant departments are responsible for those contracts. So it’s the CBSA and the few public servants we are talking about who didn’t do their job.”

GC Strategies has not returned The Epoch Times’ request for comment.