On Monday, a report from the Auditor General of Canada made many people angry. In this report, we learned that a mobile application called ArriveCAN had really, REALLY cost the government more than expected. 740 times more expensive! Aces explain all that to you.
Who is the Auditor General of Canada?
Her name is Karen Hogan. His job is to monitor the activities of the Government of Canada. It investigates and demands accountability for how the government spends and manages citizens’ money.
What is ArriveCAN?
It is a mobile application that was developed during the pandemic to ensure that travelers entering Canada were vaccinated against COVID-19.
It is the agency that protects the borders, the Canada Border Services Agency, which asked a company to develop this application for the government. Starting price in spring 2020: $80,000.
And how much did it ultimately cost?
ArriveCAN ultimately cost $59.5 MILLION. And according to the auditor, it is possible that it was even more because she had great difficulty obtaining documents such as invoices.
Here is an example to better understand the situation. You have a friend who makes bracelets that she sells for $1. You order him one. After a few days, she comes back to you with a bracelet, but it now costs $740! She explains to you that it’s because it was made by several people and that it took longer than expected. Well ! This is a bit of what we learned on Monday about ArriveCAN.
Because we also knew that the company hired to develop the application, GC Strategies, in turn asked 31 other companies to help it on this project. That’s a lot of people to pay!
What are the reactions?
The Agency agrees that the lack of tracking of expenditures is unacceptable. She explains that the app was developed urgently in the middle of a pandemic. She also says ArriveCAN has been used by 60 million travelers.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had already said at the end of January that the management of the ArriveCAN application was not effective.
Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre said it was a waste of money and even accused the government of corruption. This word refers to an illegal process where a government is given money by companies to act in their interest.
Caroline Bouffard
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