Ottawa awarded contracts totaling $75 million, some of which without competitive bidding, to a private investigation firm to deal with refugees and asylum seekers, mainly arriving via Roxham Road.
In the past six months alone, Xpera Risk Mitigation & Investigation has landed $56 million in contracts to house migrants in Quebec, Ontario and the Maritimes.
In total, the company has received more than half of the contracts awarded by the federal government since March 2020 for their temporary accommodation, according to data from Immigration Canada.
The reception of thousands of vulnerable asylum seekers contrasts with Xpera’s usual activities, such as investigations, monitoring and risk assessment.
Little known in Quebec even if the majority of migrants arrive here, the company has only a few employees in a modest office in Laval (see other text).
This did not prevent it from being the only bidder for a $37.5 million contract awarded last October to find hotels and caterers for 3,000 asylum seekers in Quebec and 1,000 in Ontario.
An emergency
Immigration Canada has also entered into three over-the-counter agreements with the company totaling $23.8 million, claiming the urgency of the migration crisis.
“IRCC was confident that the company would be able to book hotel rooms and engage vendors […] to tight deadlines,” wrote a ministry spokeswoman.
“It gives the impression that the state of emergency has been used in all sauces to conclude contracts by mutual agreement”, reacts Nicolas Lachance, director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation for Quebec.
Although Roxham Road has been closed since Saturday, another $14.3 million contract was awarded to Xpera in December to handle migrants in Quebec starting in July.
Government data initially put it at $28.7 million, until Immigration Canada advanced “an error” and revised the amount following numerous questions from the Journal.
Past contracts
But how did a firm specializing in investigations come to manage so much of the response to a humanitarian crisis on our borders?
Immigration Canada justifies its choice by citing contracts made with Xpera during the evacuation of Afghan refugees following the Taliban took power, as well as during the forest fires in northern Ontario in 2021.
Remember that nearly 40,000 people crossed the border irregularly last year and that the majority had to be temporarily housed by the federal government.
The president of Xpera declined our interview request.
From private to humanitarian assistance
Photo Nora T. Lamontagne
The Xpera offices in Laval, which were deserted in mid-March, except for one employee.
Nora T. Lamontagne
The Journal of Montreal
Xpera may get one Immigration Canada contract following another, but it has only recently appeared in the humanitarian reception landscape.
The Immigration Department’s first contracts with the private investigation firm date back only to mid-2021, according to government records.
However, Ottawa has been renting hotels for asylum seekers and refugees in Quebec and Ontario since at least 2015, documents from Immigration Canada show.
In the past, the federal government used to sign piecemeal contracts with third-party companies or directly with the hotelier, which very rarely exceeded $3 million. Instead, Xpera struck deals worth $75 million.
Other experiences
An employee not authorized to speak to the media told us that the government used the company’s services in 2021 to relocate a few hundred Indigenous people during the wildfires in northern Ontario, as well as Afghan refugees .
“Between that and our current contracts with Immigration Canada, you can draw your conclusions,” he said in English.
The company has at least one branch specializing in security services, and is owned by SCM Insurance Services, an insurance service provider.
Discreet in Quebec
On its website, Xpera bills itself as “Canada’s largest risk management and investigation firm,” with 400 employees in 24 locations across the country.
In Laval, an employee greeted us in deserted offices – the only ones in Quebec – filled with cardboard boxes.
“There were two regional directors for Quebec, but they have retired. They haven’t hired anyone else since then,” she told us.
Yet it is in our province that were housed the majority of the 39,000 asylum seekers who entered via Roxham Road last year, and for whom Xpera now manages the reception.
– With Nicolas Brasseur, Agence QMI
MILLIONS FOR XPERA FOR 2 YEARS
February 2023 | 4,5 M$ | Without tender
December 2022 | 14,38 M$ | 3 bidders
October/December 2022 | 37,5 M$ | sole bidder
December 2021 | 15 M$* | Without tender
August 2021 | 4,3 M$ | Without tender
Total 75,7 M$
Source : Immigration Canada, SPAC
