Federal bureaucrats pocketed more than $7 million in overtime while developing the Covid Alert app — a pandemic-era project that fizzled despite being touted by then–Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a patriotic duty, newly released records show.Blacklock's Reporter says Access To Information documents reveal the app, launched in June 2020, was built in just 45 days but quickly became one of Ottawa’s costliest public health misfires. Of its $20 million total cost, $7.5 million went to public service salaries and benefits, including massive overtime claims. Millions more were handed to sole-sourced contractors for “surge support,” including GC Strategies — the same Woodlawn, Ont. firm now blacklisted and under RCMP investigation for alleged billing fraud tied to the $60 million ArriveCan scandal..Conservative MP Kelly McCauley, chair of the Commons government operations committee, obtained the figures while probing pandemic-era spending. “The Covid Alert application was one of the public health tools available to help limit the spread of COVID-19,” a Treasury Board memo stated, though few Canadians ever used it.Trudeau had urged citizens to download the app as a civic responsibility, claiming it could “prevent future outbreaks” if 50% of Canadians signed up. In the end, barely 21% — about 6.9 million of 33 million mobile users — ever downloaded it..A 2022 federal report admitted “usage remained limited” and that the app “was unable to reach its full potential due to technological, adoption, process, resource and individual level factors.” Many Canadians told government pollsters they refused to use the app over privacy fears, saying they didn’t trust Ottawa with their data or location information.Despite the weak uptake, the project’s payroll soared. Managers and staff billed millions in extra hours for work on an app that, by the government’s own admission, failed to deliver meaningful public health results.
