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OTTAWA – The RCMP says it searched an office linked to ArriveCan contractor and GC Strategies co-founder Kristian Firth Tuesday.
In a statement, RCMP spokesperson Sgt. Jennifer Goodings said its Sensitive and International Investigations unit executed a search warrant in Woodlawn, Ont., at an address owned by Firth.
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The RCMP noted that the search was not linked to its ArriveCan investigation, meaning that the national police force appears to have at least two investigations into organizations linked to Firth.
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According to the RCMP’s website, the Sensitive and International investigations unit focuses on “sensitive, high risk matters that cause significant threats to Canada’s political, economic and social integrity of its institutions across Canada and internationally.”
The RCMP confirmed the search on Wednesday, the same day as Firth was called to the bar in Parliament — literally a long brass bar near the entrance of the House of Commons that can only be passed by MPs or those invited by the Crown — to be admonished and then grilled by Parliamentarians for failing to answer their questions on his role in the ArriveCan debacle.
“On behalf of the House of Commons, I admonish you,” Speaker Greg Fergus said directly to Firth, who stood upright and did not look away.
He’s only the second private citizen in Canadian history to receive such a dishonour.
Firth has been a key player in the ongoing ArriveCan scandal because of his two-person IT consulting firm’s central and lucrative role in the development of the application during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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In a recent report, Auditor General Karen Hogan said GC Strategies received nearly $19 million of the approximately $60 million the government spent on ArriveCan. She also noted with consternation that the company had helped the government develop the requirements for a contract request for proposal.
Firth has denied all wrongdoing.
It has been 111 years since the last Canadian has been called to the bar in the House of Commons to be admonished.
On Feb. 20, 1913, R.J. Miller — a private citizen and the former president of the Diamond Light and Heating Company — was escorted into the Commons by the Sergeant-at-Arms to face parliamentarians and answer a single question about an alleged bribe.
“To whom did you pay the sum of forty-one thousand and twenty-six dollars for the purpose of securing contracts from the Government of the Dominion of Canada, amounting to one hundred and seventeen thousand dollars or thereabouts,” the House of Commons asked Miller, as recorded at the time by the parliamentary Journal.
Miller refused once again to answer the question. In doing so, he was declared to be in contempt of the House and ordered to be imprisoned by the Sergeant-at-Arms until he agreed to respond. He remained in prison until the parliamentary session ended four months later.
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