Explaining the ArriveCan scandal

A person holds a smartphone set to the opening screen of the ArriveCan app in a photo illustration on June 29, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Giordano Ciampini

By Analysis by The Big Story podcast

Posted March 19, 2024 6:01 am.

Tens of millions of taxpayer dollars went into developing, releasing and updating the government’s pandemic travel app, ArriveCan. The question now is about how that money was spent, who received it, and how much work they did for it.

Irem Koca has been covering the ArriveCan controversy for The Hill Times. “This was an emergency procurement, it doesn’t mean that all the rules are going to be out the window, and the [auditor general] said that, and the Procurement Ombud said that as well,” says Koca.   

The scandal has twists and turns and detail upon detail, but it really boils down to this: Was this a government in a hurry, wasting money but with good intentions in an emergency? Or something worse than that?

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