Auditor General Karen Hogan says a lack of communication between the Public Health Agency of Canada and Canada Border Services Agency about their respective roles and responsibilities regarding the ArriveCan app left an “accountability void” that persisted for a year and a half.
“Each believed that the other was responsible for establishing a governance structure, and neither developed nor implemented good project management practices, such as developing objectives and goals and budgets and cost estimates,” Ms. Hogan said in her opening statement before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts on Feb. 20
“It’s not clear to me how you can responsibly manage spending without a budget or track progress without goals.”
Ms. Hogan said the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) did not fulfill its responsibilities of establishing the governance structure for the ArriveCan app before it transferred ownership to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) on April 1, 2022. The auditor general added that deficiencies in PHAC’s management of contracts also “contributed to our concerns about value for money.”
As an example, Ms. Hogan cited PHAC’s awarding a professional services task authorization to the company KPMG using a non-competitive approach, while failing to document why it didn’t consider using other eligible contractors for the work. The agency also did not set out specific tasks and deliverables for contracts in task authorizations.
“In support of transparency and accountability in the use of public funds, the Public Health Agency of Canada should fully document its interactions with potential contractors and the reasons for decisions made during non-competitive procurement processes,” Ms. Hogan said.
No Budget for ArriveCan
PHAC President Heather Jeffrey told OGGO on Feb. 20 that due to the large volume of travellers entering Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic, paper forms to track people “quickly became operationally inefficient,” and a digital app was necessary. She said ArriveCan was “critical to Canada’s ability to monitor, rapidly assess, and respond to COVID-19 as it evolved.”Ms. Jeffrey said PHAC acknowledged and accepted the auditor general’s findings and recommendations regarding ArriveCan, and said the agency would better document its interactions with potential contractors, strengthen guidance and training around file documentation requirements, and formally document roles and responsibilities at the outset of projects rather than at later stages.
Under questioning from Conservative MP Michel Barrett, Ms. Jeffrey revealed her department never developed a budget for the ArriveCan app or documented the cumulative cost of developing it.
“There was governance established around ArriveCan, but it focused on the public health deliverables and the nature of the border measures that needed to be put in place,” Ms. Jeffrey said.
“Documentation of the cumulative cost was not a part of the documentation of that governance,” Ms. Jeffrey said.
NDP MP Blake Desjarlais questioned how PHAC and CBSA failed to come up with a governance agreement while developing ArriveCan.
“We’ve already acknowledged that it would have been appropriate, and certainly in the future we will be putting in place formal governance,” Ms. Jeffrey responded.
Mr. Desjarlais pointed out that the two agencies were meeting on a daily or weekly basis, but still never discussed establishing a governance structure.
“You must understand the frustration Canadians and Members of Parliament have when you’re meeting in a room every single week, and you still fail to address the issues of cost, the issues of governance and, finally, the ability to come into an agreement that actually sees some of these issues,” Mr. Desjarlais said.
“This is a dramatic failure, Miss Jeffrey, and one that has cost Canadians millions of dollars. We cannot simply say that there was good intention between the CBSA and the Public Health Agency of Canada,” he said.
