ArriveCan is a mess but the scandal hides some bigger questions

Perhaps every government gets the spending scandal it deserves.

During the last Conservative government's time in office, it was the G8 Legacy Fund $50 million used to spruce upa cabinet minister's riding, nominally for the purposes of celebrating the hosting of the G8 summit in 2010. The auditor general found that Parliament wasn't informed and no paper trail existed to explain how the projects were selected.

The resulting controversy was big enough that even a young parliamentary secretary named Pierre Poilievre had to field questions about it.

Given that experience, one might have expected Poilievre to be more guardedin his response to the Liberal government's ArriveCantroubles. Instead, the Conservative leader is committed to the idea that the ill-fated app "ArriveScam," the Conservatives call it is indicative of a profligate and incompetent government.

"He took $60 million of your dollars and put it into this ArriveScam," Poilievre told Canadians during a news conference on Monday."Think of that when you see homeless people who can't afford a place to live. Justin Trudeau took their money for this ArriveScam app."

In fairness, the Liberal government is already committed to spending $4 billion to alleviate homelessness (although$60 million toward that effort certainly wouldn't hurt).

There is undoubtedly much tobe said and asked about the ArriveCanendeavour. But it's not clear (and not for the first time) that any elected official is ready or willing to think about it too deeply.

The politics of a botched contracting process

The government's very limited defence involves the plea that the app was being developed in the midst of an unprecedented pandemic that time was of the essence.

But the unique circumstances and demands of the moment scarcely offer a fig leaf to coverwhat the auditor general laid bare on Monday.

"Overall, this audit shows a glaring disregard for basic management and contracting practices throughout ArriveCan's development and implementation," Karen Hogan told reporters. "I don't believe that an emergency is a reason that all the rules are thrown out the window."

Hogan's report also may not be the last word. The Canada Border Services Agency is doing its own investigation and has referred matters related to "certain employees and contractors" to the RCMP.

If there is a mitigating factor herefor the Liberals, it's that the mess is contained to the public service side of the government. No ministers or political staff have been linked to the app's contracting and development.

WATCH |'Emergency is not a reason to throw all the rules out of the window,' AG says:

'Emergency is not a reason to throw all the rules out of the window,' says auditor general

5 months ago

Duration 12:09

A new report by the auditor general estimates that the ArriveCan app cost around $59.5 million but says the exact final cost is 'impossible to determine' due to poor record-keeping. Auditor General Karen Hogan weighs in on what went wrong with the process of developing and implementing the app.

Not that the lack of any such connection stopped the Conservatives from invoking the prime minister as much as possible when discussing ArriveCanon Monday.

"Will the prime minister not admit the app is just like him, not worth the cost and not worth the corruption?" Poilievre asked during question period.

"Why did the prime minister rig the process so that insiders get rich and taxpayers foot the bill?" asked Conservative MP Stephanie Kusie, asserting claims that are not in evidence.

There are echoes here of the spending controversy that gripped the imaginations of opposition MPs almost exactly a year ago. In that case, the furor concerned the federal government's spending on outside consultants. That controversy ran hot right up to the point whereattempts to draw a political connection reached a dead end.

If the case of ArriveCanhas more staying power, it's because there may actually be corruption to uncover and because it's easier to understand as a simple waste of public money. The app is also a tidy symbol for what the Conservatives argue is a wasteful government.

But like that brief burst of interest in the public service's use of consultants (namely, McKinsey)the hunt for a political angle may be obscuring bigger questions about how the federal government works and what needs to be done to make it work better.

The bigger questions

On Monday, Poilievre said a Conservative government would "slash the waste" and "respect your tax dollars." He also said he would ensure that the public service does more IT work in-house.

"We want to cut back on outside consultants because public servants do the work more accountably and more affordably," he said.

A CBC reporter asked the necessary follow-up: Wouldn'tthat require investmentsto ensure the federal public service has the people and skills it needs to do that work?

Presumably, if the public service already possessed the capabilities necessary to make something like ArriveCan,it wouldn't be turning so often to outside contractors.

WATCH: Poilievre attacks government's use of outside contractors

Poilievre criticizes use of outside consultants after ArriveCan report

5 months ago

Duration 1:48

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says a government led by him would cut down on outside consultants after Auditor General Karen Hogan's report on the ArriveCan app found a 'glaring disregard' for basic management practices.

"But why is it the public service doesn't have these skills?" Poilievre asked, apparently unsure of the answer himself.

The Conservative leader noted that the size of the public service has grown sinceTrudeau's government came to office in 2015 and he's not wrong. But that growth came after several years of steep cuts by the previous government. Relative to the size of the Canadian population, the public service was still smaller in 2023 than it was in 1984.

But size may be only one part of the equation.

Fourteen months ago, three experts in government and technology wrote that ArriveCanwas just a small aspectof a much larger move by the public service toward the use of private IT vendors.

"A lack of public-sector digital talent and resources, unhelpful internal rules and processes, and an outdated procurement model have trapped Ottawa in a system where high-cost, low-value contracting with private firms has become standard practice," they wrote in an op-ed for the Globe and Mail.

WATCH: LeBlancsays ArriveCancontracting process was unacceptable

ArriveCan contracting practice was 'unacceptable,' says LeBlanc

5 months ago

Duration 2:44

Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc says he's glad the auditor general has drawn attention to the 'lack of rigour in the contracting process' for ArriveCan.

A few months later, one of those experts Amanda Clarke, an associate professor at Carleton University's school of public policy and administration told a committee looking into the contracts for McKinsey that the reliance on management consultants is not an accident.

"It's an inevitable dynamic of a public service that has suffered from a lack of investment in talent and recruitment and in reforming HR practices to make it easier to bring people in,"Clarke said.

"Also, I think over the years it has suffered from unhelpful oversight and reporting burdens and a kind of error-free 'gotcha' mentality in a lot of scrutiny, and the demands for error-free government make it very difficult to be creative and innovative in the public service."

The Liberals may have come into office with a belief in the power of government to do good things. And they may have done a fair bit to restock the public service.But the controversies of the past year and Clarke's commentsraise important questions about how much has been done to build a better government.

And it's not obvious that the Conservative leader is interested in smarter government, rather than merely smaller government.

WATCH: AG Hogan says ArriveCandevelopment process flouted the rules:

Audit of ArriveCan shows 'glaring disregard' of management practices, AG says

5 months ago

Duration 0:59

Appearing before parliamentary committee, Auditor General Karen Hogan says she was concerned that the paper trail behind the application did now show how the money was spent or how decisions by management were made leading up to the launch of ArriveCan.