No competition in more than a third of GC Strategies federal deals: docs

“It's the easy way out,” said one former senior civil servant working on procurement. “Unless you have a legitimate reason to sole source, don’t.”

More than a third of federal government contracts awarded to GC Strategies over the last eight years were handed out without competition, new documents show.

GC Strategies — the two-person Ottawa IT firm — is at the centre of a widening scandal over its handling of the controversial ArriveCAN program.

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) hired the company to build the pandemic-era app. GC Strategies then subcontracted the work out to other companies.

The auditor general found in a scathing report that costs ballooned to at least $59 million but said the record-keeping on ArriveCAN was so bad it was impossible to determine the final amount.

While GC Strategies is under scrutiny over its dealings with the CBSA, a new breakdown shows the company has been hired by at least 26 other government departments, agencies, and Crown corporations since November 2015.

Over the last eight years, the federal government has awarded the company approximately 100 contracts; 38 per cent of them were sole-sourced or non-competitive, according to the documents.

But it’s difficult to get an exact figure because some records were listed as lost or incomplete, including at Public Services and Procurement Canada, the very department responsible for government services and administration.

Alan Williams, a procurement expert and former assistant deputy minister of material for National Defence, says it speaks to a “lack of accountability” and warns without competition taxpayers risk paying more for less.