A review by the procurement watchdog found that more than 75 percent of contractors hired to work on the ArriveCan application did not complete any work. The report, released on January 29 by Procurement Ombudsman Alexander Jeglic, revealed that resources proposed in the winning bids did not perform any work, raising serious concerns about the contracts. The app was used to track COVID-19 vaccination status of travelers entering Canada during the pandemic.
Reviewing contract files for 41 ArriveCan-related procurements identified by the Canada Border Service Agency, Jeglic found that 28 contractors did no work on the app and were mainly professional services contracts not specifically for ArriveCAN. In addition, many task authorizations did not list specific tasks to be completed, and assessments of resources often lacked past project experience descriptions.
One notable company, GC Strategies, failed to demonstrate that its resources met mandatory criteria for completing task authorizations under their $25.3 million ArriveCan contract. The ombudsman stated that there were examples of suppliers copying and pasting the mandatory requirements as their project experience. GC Strategies partner Kristian Firth was previously accused of lying about forging resumes for others to meet specific job experience criteria at CBSA.
The report also mentioned that GC Strategies was paid $8.9 million as a general contractor on the ArriveCan project in 2020 before outsourcing the work to six other companies and pocketing a commission of between 15 and 30 percent.
In response to the report, Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne called the news “obviously problematic,” while Conservative MPs Kelly Block and Pierre Paul-Hus referred to the ArriveCan scandal as “the tip of the iceberg.” They highlighted the extravagant cost of the app and questioned the increase in government contracts awarded to GC Strategies in recent years.