Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre today introduced a motion in the House of Commons to audit the federal government’s $54 million spending on the ArriveCan app.
“It wasn’t necessary, it didn’t work, and it could have been paid for with only $250,000 instead of $54 million,” Poilievre said of the app in the House of Commons on Nov. 1.
Two Canadian
tech firms recreated ArriveCan between Oct. 7 and Oct. 10 in a bid to show that the federal government overspent on the project. Shortly afterwards, the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) released a cost breakdown of the government’s spending on the app that claimed only $80,000 was used to develop ArriveCan.
CBSA said
additional costs associated with updating and maintaining the app increased its price tag to a total of $54 million. The government listed
ThinkOn, a Canadian tech company that provides cloud computing, as one of the contractors hired to help with developing and maintaining ArriveCan.
But ThinkOn CEO Craig McLellan said he never received the $1.2 million ArriveCan contract listed by the government, according to a report by the
Globe and Mail on Oct. 20.
“Where did all this money go?” Poilievre today asked in the House, adding, “When Canadians can’t pay their bills, it’s an outrage to make them pay $54 million.”
‘Optimal Use’
Poilievre’s
motion calls on Canada’s auditor general “to conduct a performance audit, including the payments, contracts and sub-contracts for all aspects of the ArriveCAN app, and to prioritize this investigation.”
“It is more important than ever for the government to respect taxpayer dollars and eliminate wasteful spending,” reads the motion.
Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau recently called the federal government’s ArriveCan spending an “optimal use” of taxpayer dollars.
“The amount includes, of course, much more than the developer’s fees,” Trudeau said during question period in the House on Oct. 19. “It’s extra services, the IT services, updates, call centres, and future costs.”
He later added that the federal government “will continue to make sure that there’s an optimal use of taxpayer money whilst protecting them every single day and every single night.”
The
founder of one of the companies that recreated ArriveCan in a single weekend said professional software developers should always be able to create complex and fully-integrated apps with under $1 million.
“The development effort here is minimal,” said
Sheetal Jaitly, founder of TribalScale, while speaking about ArriveCan. “This is a form that needed to be presented on a mobile device and capture some information.”
“This is not hard.”
