@RealAndyLeeShow – The federal government is still giving our money to Veritaaq in 2025 even though I can’t find their “offices” and they are under RCMP investigation for fraud.
Related: Diversity hire spelling, diversity hire management, diversity hire spending.
Sun- Internal ArriveCan investigators’ report sealed by federal court order
Auditors to date have not explained the 900% cost overrun.
An internal ArriveCan investigators’ report long sought by MPs has been sealed by Federal Court order. A judge blocked distribution of the findings at the request of Cameron MacDonald, a former Canada Border Services Agency director briefly suspended over the $63 million program: “The allegations each side makes against the other are most serious.”
“We found issues in nearly very contract we looked at.”
The report says that, for half of the contracts requiring security clearances, federal organizations weren’t able to show that those doing the work had the appropriate clearances before the contract was awarded.
Federal organizations lacked documentation to show that they had confirmed security clearances for just over one in five of the contracts Hogan’s office examined.
The report also found that federal organizations failed to monitor contract work and performance. Many accepted poorly drafted timesheets or failed to collect them at all. Others couldn’t show that the people doing the work had the required experience and qualifications.
Hogan said that in more than 80 per cent of the contracts examined, organizations couldn’t prove that the fees paid didn’t exceed market rates.
In just under half of the contracts, the report says, organizations had “little to no evidence” to show that deliverables were received. Despite that, payments were still made.
Company that worked on ArriveCan app barred from government contracts for 7 years:
Ottawa says it has banned the largest contractor that worked on the ArriveCan app from entering into contracts or real property agreements with the government for seven years.
Public Services and Procurement Canada has announced that GC Strategies Inc. has been deemed “ineligible” after an assessment of the supplier’s conduct.
Last year, the department suspended the security status of GC Strategies, which the auditor general says was awarded more than $19 million for the project.
For those not aware, the first ArriveCan contract was initially valued at just $2.35 million, but then ballooned to $60 million. And the elbows-up crowd gleefully voted for more of the same!
Globe and Mail- ArriveCan contractors failed to meet terms of Indigenous procurement program, audits find
a group of audits, which found they did not meet the criteria of a program that gave their joint venture preferential access to a dozen government contracts as an Indigenous business.
True North- U.K. imposes electronic travel authorizations for Canadians seeking to visit
Travellers will be required to submit their passport details, dates of travel and modes of transportation for authorities to review ahead of time as part of a new digital pre-screening process.
The changes are effective as of Wednesday.
Blacklock’s- Just 4% Use ArriveCan: Data
The $59.5 million ArriveCan program remains the subject of numerous audits and an RCMP investigation of fraudulent billing. Federal managers to date have not explained why the program was launched in the first place.
Managers also claimed ArriveCan saved lives. The Public Health Agency in a 2023 report to the Commons government operations committee acknowledged it had no evidence to support the lifesaving claim. “The Agency cannot quantify the exact number of lives indirectly saved through ArriveCan,” it wrote.
Blacklock’s- New ArriveCan Plan By 2026
The program will see Canadians “provide their biographic, biometric declaration and other border-related information prior to arriving at the port of entry,” said the report Traveller Modernization. “Officers will be given smartphones to access the digital referrals and process them,” it said.
“Travellers will use a redesigned advance declaration mobile application to submit their digital photo, advance declaration and license plate information in advance of arrival,” wrote the Agency.
Blacklock’s- “Deleted” Evidence Is Found
ArriveCan managers yesterday abruptly announced they’d discovered thousands of “deleted” emails involving business with contractors now under RCMP investigation.
“We trust this clarifies any potential misinterpretation,” Erin O’Gorman, president of the Agency, wrote the Commons government operations committee.
MPs last June 5 ordered the Agency to produce the records. President O’Gorman replied October 18 the evidence was destroyed. “There were no backup files accessible following the account deletion,” she wrote.
Blacklock’s- ArriveCan Records Destroyed
Doan in June 5 committee testimony said he mistakenly destroyed electronic records kept on his government-issue laptop. “I needed to change my laptop because the battery in my current one is failing,” testified Doan. “When transferring files from my old computer to my new one, files were corrupted and emails were lost. I personally reported this.”
A former Department of Industry manager has pleaded guilty to breach of trust without jail time, RCMP said yesterday. Evidence in the latest contracting scandal showed Marc Primeau of Long Sault, Ont. paid federal contracts to his own company and pocketed a 39 percent profit
Globe and Mail- Former border agency official pressed to give false testimony, MPs told
The border agency is conducting an internal investigation into allegations of cozy ties between private contractors and public servants involved in government contracting. Diane Daly told a house committee Wednesday that her interview earlier this year as part of that probe was hostile and she was pressed to pin blame on people who had done nothing wrong.
“I’m here to tell the truth but I’m very concerned that if I tell the truth here, I’m going to lose my job,” Ms. Daly said, her hands shaking at times as she read from written notes.
Blacklocks- Feared Paper Carried Germs
The Public Health Agency in an in-house memo says it introduced the $59.5 million ArriveCan app because it feared ordinary Customs forms were infected with Covid. The Agency’s own doctors at the time said there was no evidence paper spread the coronavirus.
Public Health Agency doctors never claimed Covid-19 was transmissible by paper. “I am not quite sure what the risk would be,” Dr. Howard Njoo, deputy chief public health officer, told reporters March 23, 2020. “The risk is not really out there. There should be no chance of interaction.”
Managers have never identified the source of their paper germ theory.
Blacklocks- ArriveCan Files Were Deleted
Auditors tracking irregularities in the $59.5 million ArriveCan program have complained they’ve been unable to find key records including thousands of emails on Doan’s laptop. Doan testified he mistakenly corrupted the files while trying to replace a battery.
The incident occurred in 2023 while ArriveCan investigations were underway. The committee has been told more than 1,000 records were lost. “How many emails?” asked Liberal MP Parm Bains (Steveston-Richmond East, B.C.). “I couldn’t tell you,” replied Doan.
ArriveScam President testifies that he regularly briefed Trudeau Ministers and was involved with Cabinet discussion on ArriveScam.
Trudeau was always and fully aware of consultants getting rich on Trudeau’s $60 Million ArriveScam now under RCMP investigation.
Related: NDP-Liberal cover-up coalition votes to shutdown hearing into Trudeau’s Winnipeg Lab scandal.
Blacklocks- Weary Of ArriveCan Scrutiny
The lone New Democrat on the Commons public accounts committee complains MPs are having too many meetings investigating the $59.5 million ArriveCan program. “I am getting more concerned about the cost to taxpayers that these surprise meetings are having,” said MP Blake Desjarlais (Edmonton Griesbach).
The Commons public accounts committee is mandated to scrutinize federal waste. The committee last year spent a total $13,541 on 44 meetings according to a Committee Activities And Expenditures report.
The committee last year met a total 83 hours, heard testimony from 237 witnesses and published 17 reports. Costs do not include salary for MPs, clerks, translators and technicians who are paid regardless of whether the committee meets.
Let this be a lesson;
GC Strategies partner Kristian Firth will be admonished before the House of Commons, a rare measure used just five times since the early 1900s and only once for a private citizen in the last century.
The House of Commons has taken the extraordinary step of finding Firth, a contractor for the controversial ArriveCan app, in contempt of Parliament. This rare move mandates Firth’s appearance at the bar of the House for a public censure scheduled for Apr. 17.
The bar in the House of Commons, a brass rod symbolizing the divide between MPs and non-members, is where individuals, in rare instances, can be publicly admonished.
Canada’s auditor general recently fired and called in police to investigate two employees who had been privately earning money from government contracts they had not declared.
In a statement to National Post this week, the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) said it is still investigating a third employee that it also discovered had contracts with another arm of the federal government the employee had not disclosed to their employer.
The firings, which occurred between September and December last year, come to light as questions swirl about how a federal public servant’s company was able to obtain a nearly $8-million contract to work on the ArriveCan app.
Related, from Blacklocks: Canada Revenue Agency blocks an unsubsidized Parliament Hill #cdnmedia outlet on its X account. But unlike #Saltwire, we pay our taxes. #cdnpoli
