CBSA brass defend Arrivecan but admit mistakes were made

OTTAWA • Officials from the Canada Border Services Agency said new rules are in place to prevent the kind of cost overruns that made headlines in the Arrivecan scandal, but they insisted the app did save money when it was launched during the COVID-19 pandemic.

They also revealed the app continues to cost about $3 million per year to operate.

Jonathan Moor, vice-president of the agency’s comptrollership branch, told MPS Tuesday that there were issues with the Arrivecan app’s management and contracting, but he believes it actually saved money when compared to the alternative — paper forms.

“I do believe Arrivecan provided value for money. I don’t believe it provided best value for the taxpayer,” he told MPS at the House of Commons Government Operations Committee.

The Arrivecan app was developed early in the COVID-19 pandemic as a way for returning travellers to provide contact information to public health authorities and eventually to track vaccination status. It became mandatory in early 2021 before being suspended entirely in the fall of 2022.

Auditor General Karen Hogan released a scathing report on the app in February, saying that basic accounting practices were not followed and that the project cost nearly $60 million, but she could not be sure of the exact amount because of poor bookkeeping. Hogan found many invoices, contracts and justifications for the solesourced app were missing and testing documentation was also absent.

Moor said despite those mistakes, the app saved money by replacing paper forms. He said during the pandemic about 60 million travellers used it when returning home. Had they been required to submit that information on paper it would have cost $3 per submission, while Arrivecan reduced it to $1 per submission.

While now voluntary, the app is still in use and Moor said about 300,000 people a month produce it when they arrive at airports, taking advantage of special lines to fill out customs declarations.

He said processing those travellers costs about $3 million a year.

Conservative MP Larry Brock accused Moor and other CBSA executives of not revealing all the information about the app, suggesting that two CBSA employees who have been suspended are scapegoats.

“This committee has bona fide concerns that CBSA top brass is covering up and deliberately trying to hide their actions while scapegoating others,” he said.

Brock also rejected any suggestion that the app had saved money.

“I can tell you Canadian taxpayers are very disappointed in the operations of the CBSA.”

Moor said the majority of Arrivecan contracts were signed by the two suspended employees, Cameron Macdonald and Antonio Utano, but he also acknowledged senior executives should have been watching the file more closely.

He said the agency was overwhelmed by the new realities of COVID when the app was developed in early 2020. He said the government was still learning about the virus and feared paper forms could actually help spread it.

“We were incredibly busy though, and also we were understaffed in a number of different areas. I think it’s worth just reminding everybody of what the pandemic was like at the start of this,” he said. “During that time, sure we made mistakes and we should learn from those mistakes, but it was a very stressful situation.”

Moor said any CBSA manager with the ability to sign contracts has been mandated to take 16 hours of training on their responsibilities and an executive-level committee is now reviewing any contract worth more than $40,000.

“The effect is much more transparency over all of the actions we are taking on procurement, and we have strengthened the first line and second line of defence. This was lacking during the COVID period.”