Federal Employees Spent More Than 134,000 Hours Working on ArriveCan App, Ottawa Says

A person holds a smartphone set to the opening screen of the ArriveCan app, which requires people to declare their vaccination status to be able to enter Canada. The Canadian Press/Giordano Ciampini

Federal employees spent more than 134,000 hours working on ArriveCan, even though the government spent over $59 million on private contractors to develop the app, according to parliamentary documents.

The information was released by the government on March 18 following a request by Conservative MP Andrew Scheer, as first reported by Blacklock’s Reporter. Mr. Scheer asked in an order paper the number of federal employees who worked on ArriveCan and about how much time they spent on the application.

In the response, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) said 35 of its employees worked on ArriveCan from March 2020 to September 2022 over and above their regular duties, but could not provide exact hours. The agency said assigned tasks were not systematically tracked.

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) provided more detailed information, stating that for 2021-2022 a total of 38 full-time equivalent employees spent 74,455 working hours on ArriveCan, while the following fiscal year 31 full-time equivalent employees spent 59,598 working hours on the app.

The federal government has faced criticism from the opposition parties and government watchdogs about the amount of money spent on developing ArriveCan, as well as the manner in which the money was distributed via contracts.

In her report on ArriveCan released last month, Auditor General Karen Hogan said several government agencies did not follow proper contract and management practices during the app’s development.

“I am deeply concerned by what this audit didn’t find,” Auditor General Karen Hogan told MPs. “We didn’t find records to accurately show how much was spent on what, who did the work, or how and why contracting decisions were made.”

The report criticized the CBSA for “poor” financial records on the app, saying the true cost could not be fully determined. She said the $59.5 million cost was merely an estimate based on the available information.

The ArriveCan app was used to track the vaccination status of travellers entering Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A report on ArriveCan by Procurement Ombudsman Alexander Jeglic, which was released on Jan. 29, found that 76 percent of contractors hired to work on the application did not do any work on it, which he said raised “serious concerns.”