Those of you from Canada who had to travel in the last few months will be aware of the gong show that the ArriveCan app was. It cost the Federal Government some $54 million!! $54 million for an app that was only meant to cost $80,000. Thats a fair chunk of change. So where did the money go?

That's what MP's in Ottawa are trying to find out. And, it seems that the CBSA (Canada Border Services Agency) doesn't have a clue where the money went either. 

The company that was chosen to create the app took a 15-30% cut for themselves, then outsourced the work. Not a bad payout for being a middleman. That's where the CBSA's knowledge of who was involved in the project seems to stop.

This seems like gross negligence in my opinion. The fact that a Government Agency that's tasked with securing Canadian borders doesn't know how they spent $54 million, with little to no oversight is bewildering to me.

The CBSA even paid out $1.2 million to a company that didn't even work on the app.

So where does the $54 million price tag come from? Well, it has ballooned to that figure through updates, infrastructure and support. The app was mandatory for travellers to submit their vaccine status when entering Canada for a few short months before being made into a voluntary app.

In my opinion, there should have been far more oversight on this project and someone should be getting fired over this. But, as we all know, Governments find a way to justify things and sweep them under the rug.

I soubt we'll ever find out the true cost of this app. There are talks now of further investigations taking place, so who knows how long they're going to take and how much it's going to cost the Canadian taxpayers.  

Photo Credit: Government of Canada