ArriveCan contractor rejects auditor general report, blames government's poor record-keeping

One of the partners at GC Strategies is rebutting an auditor general's report that suggests his firm earned $19 million for the ArriveCan application, arguing that the government's poor record-keeping inflated that estimate.

Kristian Firth is appearing today before the House government operations committee. It's the first time he's made public comments since Auditor General Karen Hogan released her report on ArriveCan last month.

Hogan's report estimated the total cost of the ArriveCan app at just under $60 million and said the government's over-reliance on outside contractors contributed to the project's ballooning costs.

GC Strategies was the contractor that received the most money for the project. But Firth told the committee that his records indicate his firm received only $11 million for ArriveCan, not the $19 million cited by the auditor general.

When asked why his math differed from Hogan's, Firth blamed the government's contracting process and record-keeping.

«There were three COVID-19 pandemic contracts. There was not one that was solely set aside for ArriveCan. So I can understand why it was hard for the auditor general,» Firth said.

Hogan noted in her report that the final cost of ArriveCan was «impossible to determine» due to poor financial record-keeping at the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). Firth agreed with that assessment

«There's lots of reasons why there could be discrepancies. We understand the financial systems and the codes aren't the best at CBSA,» he told the committee.

He also suggested that some CBSA officials may have added an ArriveCan label or «tagged» other projects as being related to ArriveCan in order to secure funding.

«No one knows if it's ArriveCan or not because of how it's recorded