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House Hansard - 244

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 1, 2023 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 244 - Nov/1/23
Hon. Judy A. Sgro (Humber River—Black Creek, Lib.)
  • Nov/1/23 4:05:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 107(3), I have the honour to present, in both official language, the seventh report of the Liaison Committee, entitled “Committee Activities and Expenditures: April 1, 2023 - August 31, 2023”. This report highlights the work and accomplishments of each committee, as well as detailing the budgets that fund the activities approved by committee members.
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Context: House Hansard - 244 - Nov/1/23
Ms. Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné (Terrebonne, BQ)
  • Nov/1/23 6:56:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am continuing a speech I was able to start a few days ago. I would like to start from the beginning, but quickly, and present a chronology of the whole ArriveCAN affair. On April 29, 2020, the government launched the ArriveCAN app nationwide. It then took several months for it to make the app mandatory, which happened on November 21, 2020. This meant that anyone re-entering Canada from that point on had to register and use the ArriveCAN application. Everyone who left the country and returned to Canada realized that the ArriveCAN app was not very sophisticated. On October 24, 2022, the Canada Border Services Agency announced the costs of the application on its website. We are talking $55 million over three years. Costs totalled more than $55 million over the three-year period from 2020 to 2023, including $80,000 for the first mobile version of the app and $8.6 million for more than 70 updates to the app and the related website. It is worth nothing that 70 updates is a lot, especially for an app that, on the whole, is pretty straightforward. Another $7.9 million was spent on data management and $6.4 million on data storage and cloud services. That is a lot of money. That is the first observation. Second, on October 31, 2022, pursuant to a motion adopted by the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, the Canada Border Services Agency provided an updated table of non-salary expenditures related to ArriveCAN, along with the names of the companies contracted to develop the app. On November 2, 2022, one year ago tomorrow, the House voted in this very chamber to adopt the motion calling on the Auditor General to investigate and audit the ArriveCAN app. I point out that this motion was adopted by a majority in the House of Commons, but not unanimously. On January 23, so about two months later, when the Prime Minister was asked about it, he replied that the contracting process for ArriveCAN had been illogical and inefficient. On October 4, 2023, so just under a month ago, two articles in The Globe and Mail reported allegations of misconduct in the Canada Border Services Agency's IT contracting process. On Thursday, October 12, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, on which I have the pleasure of sitting, convened an emergency meeting to ensure that the information gathered by The Globe and Mail would be taken into consideration by the Auditor General, who, I would remind the House, is to conduct an audit on the matter. The chair of our committee explained that he convened that meeting following the announcement of an RCMP investigation into allegations of misconduct in the contracting process. Madam Speaker, there is a lot of background noise. I would like to be able to deliver my speech in a more conducive environment.
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