The Canada Border Services Agency has acknowledged it provided inaccurate information to Parliament about a $1.2-million ArriveCan contract and is launching a full review of its list of companies that received federal funding to work on the app.
The Globe and Mail reported Thursday that ThinkOn CEO Craig McLellan had written to the CBSA earlier in the week to express concern as to why his company was included in a list of 23 companies the agency told Parliament had worked on the ArriveCan app.
The CBSA’s reference to ThinkOn included specific information, such as a contract value of $1,183,432, a time window of between Jan. 21, 2020 and March 31, 2022 and a description of work that said ThinkOn provided “experimentation of mobile QR code scanning and verification.” The value was sixth-largest on the list of 23 companies.
Mr. McLellan said he learned of his company’s inclusion on the list after it was reported in The Globe. He said his company provides cloud computing services and does not work in the QR code field.
For two days, opposition MPs asked the government to explain why a company was listed as being awarded $1.2-million for ArriveCan, yet had not received a penny. Liberal MPs responded on Thursday and Friday that the CBSA was looking into the matter.
Late Friday evening, CBSA spokesperson Sandra Boudreau provided a short statement to The Globe.
“When asked to report on all the contracts for ArriveCan, we included ThinkOn in error. We did not have a contract with ThinkOn Inc. and no payment has been made to the company,” she wrote.
When asked how this error occurred, the agency replied: “It was human error. We listed the wrong company name next to the contract information in the report.”
The CBSA did not immediately respond to further questions from The Globe, including a request to identify the company that should have been listed as having been awarded $1.2-million.
However the agency provided a new statement to The Globe on Saturday.
“Given the error, we are doing a full review of the list reported and will be in a position to share with your readers the company name in the coming days,” Ms. Boudreau wrote.
The Globe reported earlier last week that a spokesperson for Ernst & Young – ranked 17th on the list of companies that worked on the app – said the government’s reference to the company receiving $120,000 in ArriveCan work “appears to be an error.”
“EY was not involved with the ArriveCan app,” Victoria McQueen said on Thursday.
However, Ms. McQueen revised that statement in an e-mail sent Friday evening, saying that while Ernst & Young was not directly contracted by CBSA to perform work on the ArriveCan app, it did provide “contracted resources” to the project owing to the nature of another existing contract the firm has with the CBSA.
The CBSA’s statement also clarified another issue with the list. The report to Parliament says a company called “Maplesoft” was awarded $626,000. MapleSoft CEO Laurent Bernardin told The Globe that his software company did not work on the app, but said that his company is sometimes mistaken for another company called Maplesoft Group, a professional services company in Ottawa.
The CBSA confirmed that ArriveCan work was conducted by Maplesoft Group, not Maplesoft.
The Commons committee on government operations began a study Thursday into the government’s management of the ArriveCan app, which the CBSA said began as an $80,000 expense and is now on pace to cost $54-million by the end of this fiscal year.
The committee has approved a motion calling on government departments to provide MPs with detailed documentation – including contracts and invoices – related to the ArriveCan app by the end of the month.
The app was initially created as a way for travellers to upload mandatory health information related to COVID-19 but has since been expanded to allow users to answer customs and immigration questions. As of Sept. 30, it is no longer mandatory but it continues as a voluntary option.
Reached for comment on Saturday, Mr. McLellan, the ThinkOn CEO, said he had not yet received a response to his Wednesday e-mail to the CBSA raising concerns about the ArriveCan list. However, on Sunday, he said he had received an apology that day from the CBSA.