(Ottawa) The financial fiasco surrounding ArriveCAN will be the subject of a new investigation, this time by the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner. Harriett Solloway will look into allegations of wrongdoing committed in connection with the development of the application and those of reprisals against two civil servants suspended without pay in the wake of this affair.
This is yet another investigation after that of the Auditor General, the Procurement Ombudsman, the internal investigation of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), the parliamentary committee on government operations and of that of public accounts.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has also opened an investigation into allegations of embezzlement made by the Montreal firm Botler AI as part of another information technology project prior to ArriveCAN. However, she evaluates the Auditor General’s report published last month on the financial fiasco surrounding the application.
In this report, Karen Hogan estimated its cost at nearly 60 million without being able to determine it exactly. “This is probably some of the worst financial record keeping I’ve ever seen,” she said. She had revealed irregularities in the awarding of these contracts to GC Strategies, a firm of two employees with no expertise in information technology which subsequently subcontracted the work.
The Integrity Commissioner confirmed the opening of her investigation “into several allegations of wrongdoing as defined in the law in relation to the development and management of ArriveCAN” in a letter sent recently to Conservative MP Kelly Block of which The Press got a copy. She writes that she is well aware of the motion adopted last month by the government operations committee to call for this new investigation to be held.
Mme Solloway also warns that his office is already handling complaints of retaliation submitted by the two officials suspended in connection with ArriveCAN, Cameron MacDonald and Antonio Utano. At the time, they worked for the CBSA which had awarded contracts for the application, including those to GC Strategies and Dalian. These two staffing firms recently lost their security clearance which allowed them to obtain federal government contracts.
When they testified in committee in February, MM. MacDonald and Utano had accused CBSA senior management of lying in the affair ArriveCAN to cover up his own incompetence.