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 up a 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 guarded in his response to the Liberal government's ArriveCan troubles. 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 to be said — and asked — about the ArriveCan endeavour. 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