The recent procurement controversies involving ArriveCan and the federal green fund raise the possibility that more potential unethical practices are waiting to be unearthed, especially given that federal contracting is at record levels. The House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates (OGGO) has been studying issues surrounding ArriveCan since October 2022. This includes investigating how three companies received millions in taxpayer dollars to develop the app for the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), which critics say could have been developed for a fraction of its $54 million cost. The OGGO committee heard from Ottawa-based GC Strategies, the two-person IT staffing company awarded the CBSA contract, on Oct. 20, 2022. Company partner Kristian Firth told MPs that his firm subcontracted the app’s development to “five or six subject matter firms” and took a commission of between 15 and 30 percent. Mr. Firth confirmed that his company was paid $9 million and that he and his partner made between $1.35 million and $2.7 million “pre-tax” between the two of them over the two years of work. The Globe reported in November that Public Services and Procurement Canada had launched a review of GC Strategies and two other IT staffing companies at the centre of the controversy—Coradix and Dalian. Also investigating are the RCMP, Canada’s auditor General, and CBSA itself. The OGGO committee launched a study on federal contracts awarded to McKinsey in January this year to examine the over $100 million in contracts given to the company since the Liberals came to power in 2015. When the Conservatives were in power from 2006 to 2015, McKinsey received just $2.2 million in federal contracts, CBC reported in January. Reports of Alleged Unethical Contracting As federal spending on consultants has risen, so have reports of alleged unethical conduct related to contracting. According to Procurement Ombudsman Alexander Jeglic’s 2022–23 annual report, his office was contacted 30 times during the year about concerns involving federal officials not following the Values and Ethics Code for the Public Sector. “I remain concerned regarding negative trends related to the lack of competitive processes and deficient documentation practices that continue to pose problems and undermine transparency in federal procurement,” he wrote. Mr. Jeglic—whose office is responsible for reviewing the practices of federal departments for acquiring goods and services—said his office continues to receive feedback from stakeholders saying that the contracting process is “unnecessarily complex.” He said this complexity has contributed to a lack of bids observed in reviews done by his office since 2018. Mr. Lee said the report indicates that the federal government is not practising due diligence when it comes to contracting. “My concern is that it’s undermining confidence in the procurement process. And this is their squandering of scarce taxpayer dollars, clearly a problem because an independent agency has evaluated that and determined that this is a problem,” he said.