During parliamentary debate in the House of Commons Thursday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called Conservatives “conspiracy theorists” and refused to answer how much ArriveCan cost taxpayers.Auditors have testified the ArriveCan app, which Trudeau originally said would cost $80,000, cost Canadian taxpayers $59.5 million. According to a report from Blacklock’s Reporter released Friday, the final costs amounted to $6.3 million — revealing the Trudeau Liberals spent ten times more on the app than it actually cost. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre asked Trudeau how he could have "wasted millions of dollars on ArriveScam" and demanded the prime minister answer to Canadians.Trudeau refused to address the costs, accusing the Conservative party instead of "conspiracy theorism” for “objecting” to the Liberal-NDP coalition government’s COVID-19 era mandates. “What was the full and final cost of the app?” Poilievre asked. "That is among the questions,” responded Trudeau. “There are direct follow-ups, investigations, to ensure that, as rules were evidently broken, there are consequences, there is an accountability for this.”“There is no doubt that there were serious challenges around procurement and public service at that time,” continued Trudeau. “We need to make sure that is fixed, we need to move forward in a way that takes better responsibility for the kinds of challenges we face in this situation.” "How much?" repeated Poilievre."During the pandemic we were there to invest, to protect Canadians, and keep their lives safe, despite the objections and the conspiracy theorism of the Conservative Party,” answered Trudeau. “Does he really expect us to believe he doesn’t know how much his own app cost?” Poilievre said. “Either he’s covering it up, or he’s incompetent, or worse.”“Which is it?” .Two executives from the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) testified during the Commons Government Operations Committee Thursday ArriveCan cost a tenth of what was paid for it. “I delivered a detailed costing of $6.3 million,” testified Cameron MacDonald, former director general with CBSA. “That included security, hosting fees, validation, independent reviews, the building of the app, etcetera.”“The $6.3 million was the aggregate cost I was tracking over the first year,” said MacDonald. “At the onset of the pandemic we were asked to digitize a form. The budget for that was about $50,000. When it went to building a mobile app and releasing it, the original budget from a prototype perspective was about $400,000.”“There kept on being continuous changes and everybody started injecting their requirements,” said MacDonald, adding there was “never a budget allocated.”“We are not responsible for the $60 million budget or the oversight of it,” he said. ArriveCan contractors, who are facing subpoena to testify before committee, billed $1,090 a day, a 61% premium over the equivalent cost of federal IT specialists, according to Blacklock’s.
During parliamentary debate in the House of Commons Thursday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called Conservatives “conspiracy theorists” and refused to answer how much ArriveCan cost taxpayers.Auditors have testified the ArriveCan app, which Trudeau originally said would cost $80,000, cost Canadian taxpayers $59.5 million. According to a report from Blacklock’s Reporter released Friday, the final costs amounted to $6.3 million — revealing the Trudeau Liberals spent ten times more on the app than it actually cost. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre asked Trudeau how he could have "wasted millions of dollars on ArriveScam" and demanded the prime minister answer to Canadians.Trudeau refused to address the costs, accusing the Conservative party instead of "conspiracy theorism” for “objecting” to the Liberal-NDP coalition government’s COVID-19 era mandates. “What was the full and final cost of the app?” Poilievre asked. "That is among the questions,” responded Trudeau. “There are direct follow-ups, investigations, to ensure that, as rules were evidently broken, there are consequences, there is an accountability for this.”“There is no doubt that there were serious challenges around procurement and public service at that time,” continued Trudeau. “We need to make sure that is fixed, we need to move forward in a way that takes better responsibility for the kinds of challenges we face in this situation.” "How much?" repeated Poilievre."During the pandemic we were there to invest, to protect Canadians, and keep their lives safe, despite the objections and the conspiracy theorism of the Conservative Party,” answered Trudeau. “Does he really expect us to believe he doesn’t know how much his own app cost?” Poilievre said. “Either he’s covering it up, or he’s incompetent, or worse.”“Which is it?” .Two executives from the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) testified during the Commons Government Operations Committee Thursday ArriveCan cost a tenth of what was paid for it. “I delivered a detailed costing of $6.3 million,” testified Cameron MacDonald, former director general with CBSA. “That included security, hosting fees, validation, independent reviews, the building of the app, etcetera.”“The $6.3 million was the aggregate cost I was tracking over the first year,” said MacDonald. “At the onset of the pandemic we were asked to digitize a form. The budget for that was about $50,000. When it went to building a mobile app and releasing it, the original budget from a prototype perspective was about $400,000.”“There kept on being continuous changes and everybody started injecting their requirements,” said MacDonald, adding there was “never a budget allocated.”“We are not responsible for the $60 million budget or the oversight of it,” he said. ArriveCan contractors, who are facing subpoena to testify before committee, billed $1,090 a day, a 61% premium over the equivalent cost of federal IT specialists, according to Blacklock’s.
