February 12, 2024 – The Canada Border Services Agency, the Public Health Agency of Canada, and Public Services and Procurement Canada failed to follow good management practices in the contracting, development, and implementation of the ArriveCAN application.

So finds an audit report from the Office of the Auditor General of Canada to the Parliament of Canada (which you can download, at bottom).

The audit focused on whether the Canada Border Services Agency, the Public Health Agency of Canada, and Public Services and Procurement Canada managed all aspects of the ArriveCAN application—including procurement and expected deliverables—with due regard to economy, efficiency, and effectiveness.

“The Canada Border Services Agency’s documentation, financial records, and controls were so poor that we were unable to determine the precise cost of the ArriveCAN application,” admits the Office of the Auditor General in its report. “Using the information that was available, we estimated the cost at approximately $59.5 million.”

The report states that CBSA’s disregard for policies, controls, and transparency in the contracting process restricted opportunities for competition and undermined value for money.

“We found that the agency had little documentation to support how and why GC Strategies was awarded the initial ArriveCAN contract through a non-competitive process,” reads the report, which found that GC Strategies was subsequently involved in developing the requirements that CBSA ultimately included in the RFP for its competitive contract.

Given the number and value of competitive and non-competitive contracts used to carry out the ArriveCAN project, “we are concerned that essential information—such as clear deliverables and required qualifications—was missing”.

“We found that details about the work performed were often missing on invoices and supporting time sheets submitted by contractors that the agency approved,” continues the report.

Canada Border Services Agency routinely approved and paid invoices that contained little or no details on the work completed.

Between April 2020 and October 2022, CBSA released 177 versions of ArriveCAN, often with little to no documentation of testing. In one update, in June 2022, around 10,000 travellers were wrongly instructed to quarantine.

So while the audit estimates that the ArriveCAN application cost about $59.5 million, it strongly emphasizes that the exact cost is impossible to calculate because of the CBSA’s poor financial record-keeping.

“The agency’s decision to continue relying on external resources throughout the application’s development, launch and updates—beyond the initial pandemic crisis—increased costs and brings into question the value achieved for money spent.”

“Many questions that Parliamentarians and Canadians are asking cannot be answered. The lack of information to support ArriveCAN spending and decisions has compromised accountability,” said Karen Hogan, Canada’s Auditor General.

DOWNLOAD THE REPORT (PDF): ArriveCan Auditor General Canada FEB2024 FULL