Don Martin: ArriveCan debacle may be even worse than we know from auditor's report

It’s been 22 years since a former auditor general blasted the Chrétien government after it “broke just about every rule in the book” in handing out private sector contracts in the sponsorship scandal.

The book has been broken anew.

In a rule-shredding repeat orbiting the dreaded ArriveCan app, Auditor-General Karen Hogan drew a paint by hefty numbers portrait of bureaucratic incompetence, dodged accountability and contractors treating Liberal government officials to fine whisky tastings.

• 'We paid too much': Canada's AG blasts CBSA over ArriveCan app

What started out as a modest $80,000 piece of basic traveller-tracking software during the pandemic became a $60-million-plus boondoggle where juicy contracts were farmed out without competitive bidding to those without the skills or staff to deliver the goods.

The reviled ArriveCan app is a repressed memory for many travellers, who fought with the finicky technology while standing in customs lineups at airports or scrambled for Wi-Fi signals to fill it out at land border crossings.

But the auditor general’s detailed and damning analysis is the truly infuriating part of this technological ripoff. And Hogan says the worst may be in details she could not access.

Auditor general Karen Hogan responds to a question on her offices report during a news conference, Monday, February 12, 2024 in Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

For example, we still don’t know which bureaucrats handed out contracts to unqualified recipients, some without legitimate proposals to justify untendered money grabs, or why these specific companies received such special treatment.

No heads have rolled onto the unemployment rolls as a result of allegations dating back two years.

All we know is somehow GCStrategies, a two-person consulting firm based in a rural Ottawa Valley house, was able to write its own ticket to a $25-million contract despite having no hands-on expertise beyond knowing which bureaucratic backs to scratch.

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In one case, they didn’t even have to submit a proposal. All they had to do was invite the decision makers to a whisky drinking event or a few dinners and the cheques fell into their lap.

But they were not alone. There were a number of companies, including the king of government contracts in KPMG, which received similar sweetheart procurements from velvet-gloved bureaucrats filled with blank pages where the detailed contract justifications should appear.

The faults and flaws which drove up contract prices were many and should’ve been easy to catch and fix.

The supervising power over procurement in Public Services did not review all the deals as one might expect.

In some cases, potential bidders drafted the terms of the contracts they would ultimately receive without any competition.

The lead agencies -- the Canadian Border Agency and the Public Health Agency -- each thought the other was taking the administrative lead so nobody was in charge.

Junior techs working the app were billing senior service rates and timesheets were not validated for work done, which helped inflate the daily pay rate to $1,090 per private tech employee versus $675 for an equivalent government worker.

What’s worse, if that’s possible, once the app was in operation it required a steady stream of major fixes, most of which were never tested before they were unleashed on the travelling public. In one case, the auditor general notes, that meant 10,000 fully vaccinated Canadians were needlessly quarantined by a glitch in the app.

It all reeks to high heaven and we don’t even have the kickers yet.

The results of an RCMP investigation are yet to come and there’s a bombshell report from the procurement ombudsman that was so "scary," MPs have deferred hearings on his findings.

While this brouhaha cannot be laid at the feet of the prime minister, it is symptomatic of what happens when a stale government sticks around long enough to develop excessively cozy connections with lobbyists and consultants.

While the size of the public service has ballooned under the Trudeau government, the use of private sector alternatives has kept pace at a tremendous cost to taxpayers.

The debacle behind the ArriveCan app is what happens when a government either loses faith in its own public servants -- or prefers working with silver-tongued friendlies lubricating deals with free whisky.

That’s the bottom line.