Allegations of corruption, lying, intimidation, and shady contracting have been raised by government officials and IT contractors before a Commons committee.
Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) has launched a review of the three IT Firms at the centre of the ArriveCAN scandal but has not yet imposed a government-wide suspension of business with the companies.
PSPC is investigating the firms Coradix, Dalian, and GC Strategies for alleged contracting misconduct and will take the “appropriate actions” once the review is complete, the agency said in an email to
the Globe and Mail. The agency said the probe would cover the security verifications of the existing contracts with the three companies.
Last week, PSPC and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) announced they were temporarily suspending all contracts with the three companies. The IT firms can continue working with other departments in the federal government while the investigation is underway, PSPC said. The agency did not provide a timeline for the investigation.
The three companies are also being investigated by the RCMP as well as the auditor general.
GC Strategies has received more than $59 million in funding from the federal government since 2017, while Coradix and Dalion have been given more than $411 million over the past decade.
For weeks, the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates has been examining how the three companies received millions of taxpayer dollars to
develop the ArriveCAN app, which was used by Ottawa to track the COVID-19 vaccination status of travellers visiting Canada.
Critics have pointed out that the app could have been developed for a fraction of its $54 million cost.
Back in October 2022, one programmer from the Toronto-based developer Lazer Technologies managed to develop a copy of the ArriveCAN app in just two days, while noting that it was easier to create a clone of an app than to make it from scratch.
During the committee meetings, allegations of corruption, lying, intimidation, and shady contracting have been raised by government officials and IT contractors. According to the two co-founders of the software company Botler AI, certain factions within the federal government have been complicit in corruption. They alleged that “ghost contractors” were added to the ArriveCAN contract and that taxpayers’ money was siphoned without any legal trace.
A former CBSA director
also testified that the federal government’s Chief Technology Officer Minh Doan lied when he told the committee that he didn’t know who hired GC Strategies to build the ArriveCAN app. Mr. Doan did not respond to the Epoch Times’ request for comment.
The co-owner of GC Strategies Kristian Firth has also been accused
by MPs of inflating the work experience of contractors when submitting resumes to the federal government.
Several Conservative MPs have also alleged that the companies behind the ArriveCAN app were middlemen that did “no work” but still received millions of taxpayer dollars.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has called the concerns around ArriveCAN “extremely concerning,” and said public servants were expected to always conduct themselves with “utmost integrity.”
The prime minister also said his government would continue cooperating with all related investigations.
“When we see matters of wrongdoing, we ensure that proper authorities are looking into it,” he said on Nov. 8 in the House of Commons. “And of course, our government will always ensure full cooperation with investigating authorities.”
