The federal government has suspended an assistant deputy minister and a director-general, both without pay, in a case involving alleged misconduct in the awarding of a federal contract related to the ArriveCan app, which cost taxpayers over $54 million dollars.
Cameron MacDonald, assistant deputy minister at Health Canada, and Antonio Utano, a director-general at the Canada Revenue Agency, have criticized the move as an intimidation tactic to silence their criticism, reports the Globe and Mail. MacDonald called the move “Kafkaesque madness”, referencing situations from novels of Franz Kafka.
The duo, formerly with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), were involved in outsourcing work for the ArriveCan app and another project with Montreal software company Botler. The House committee is investigating the ballooning costs of the ArriveCan app, now exceeding $54-million, and the broader issue of federal outsourcing costs.
Allegations of contracting misconduct were raised by Botler co-founders Ritika Dutt and Amir Morv to Mr. Utano and other senior CBSA leaders, leading to an internal CBSA investigation and an RCMP inquiry. Botler’s concerns included apparent favouritism and unnecessary layers of subcontracting in government IT consulting.
During a committee hearing, Mr. Utano and Mr. MacDonald denied wrongdoing, with the latter accusing former CBSA vice-president Minh Doan of lying to MPs about the selection process for GCStrategies, the IT staffing company involved in the ArriveCan project. Their lawyer, Chris Spiteri, claims the suspension aims to tarnish their credibility and intimidate other civil servants from exposing misconduct.
CBSA, Health Canada, and the Canada Revenue Agency declined to comment on the employment status of Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Utano, citing privacy laws. However, they confirmed that allegations of employee misconduct are taken seriously and thoroughly investigated.
The committee hearings on this matter are set to continue this week, with further testimonies expected from various stakeholders involved in the case, including the likes of current CBSA president Erin O’Gorman and former CBSA president John Ossowski.
ArriveCan’s original budget was $80,000, but eventually ballooned to over $54 million. It was revealed the app was outsourced by GCStrategies, a two-person team without any offices, which then found contractors to create the app, while taking in cuts on every contract along the way.
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Corruption, incompetence, graft and bulling whistleblowers…all have been completely normalized within Trudeau’s Canada. And his groupies will fall over themselves excusing, minimizing or misdirecting. Whataboutism and denialism.
Nothing new here, moving on. At least until someone (literally anyone else) comes along.
Can’t wait for this clown and his minions to be gone. Also random thought but maybe Bloc should be kicked out of anything to do with Federal govt since they clearly have an agenda for their own province.
Something is very wrong about this whole ArriveCan issue…on many levels. Not only how it was paid for but how it was done. An app doing that little shouldn’t have a cost anywhere near that.
Graft, kickbacks, payoffs, donations back into LPC. These things all cost money.
WE, SNC, Aga Khan, PRC election interference…all involved money/goods/services flowing into LPC/trudeau controlled coffers at some level. Why would we expect ArriveCan or any other initiative under this gov not to be full of the same? This is status quo these days.
I’ll create a Google Form for free
Over 54 million dollars for something that anyone can create on microsoft or Google for free.
If this isn’t evidence enough this government has overstepped its boundaries and willfully spent billions of taxpayer money on hopes and dreams, nothing will be.
Trudeau must go.
Que the theme for the TV show “Dragnet.” Not to worry for Sergeant Joe Friday of the Horsey Police is on the case. Of course these sacrificial public servants will eventually get the boot. No former Ministers with responsible portfolios back then will get fired. And the poor old Canadian taxpayer gets it in the neck, again. Very Trudopian ways.