Auditor-General Karen Hogan at a news conference in Ottawa on March 27, 2023.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
Two government watchdogs will soon release reports into the events and issues surrounding Ottawa’s ArriveCan app, with Auditor-General Karen Hogan releasing one on Feb. 12 and Procurement Ombudsman Alexander Jeglic reporting next week.
Deputy auditor-general Andrew Hayes confirmed the Feb. 12 release date Thursday during an appearance before the House of Commons public accounts committee, but declined to comment further on the report.
Parliament is scheduled to resume sitting on Monday.
The House requested the Auditor-General’s ArriveCan audit in a 174 to 149 vote that occurred in November, 2022. That vote happened just weeks after The Globe and Mail first reported that spending on the app for international travellers was on pace to exceed $54-million.
The Globe reported that the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) relied on layers of outsourcing to contractors and subcontractors to build and maintain the app, with later updates showing $11-million flowing through a two-person IT staffing company called GCStrategies.
Since then, several Commons committees have held extensive hearings on the issue, and former senior CBSA officials have provided conflicting testimony as to how GCStrategies was selected as the company that ultimately received the most outsourcing work.
In October, 2023, shortly after The Globe reported new allegations of contracting misconduct involving CBSA officials and private contractors, including GCStrategies, Ms. Hogan announced that she would be expanding her then-nearly finished ArriveCan audit to review the new allegations.
In announcing her expanded audit, Ms. Hogan expressed concern to MPs that CBSA officials had not informed her that the agency had referred the contracting misconduct allegations to the RCMP and that the RCMP was investigating.
Ms. Hogan said she read about the RCMP investigation in The Globe.
“I am disappointed that they did not tell us,” Ms. Hogan said of CBSA leadership last October.
Meanwhile, Wafa Ibrahim, a spokesperson for the Procurement Ombudsman, said in an e-mail that the office will be releasing a report before the end of this month related to a procurement practice review of ArriveCan.
CBSA president Erin O’Gorman told MPs last week that the agency’s continuing internal investigation into the contracting misconduct allegations has raised some concerns, including “a pattern of persistent collaboration between certain officials and GCStrategies.”
She said the pattern shows “efforts to circumvent or ignore certain established processes and roles and responsibilities.”