Canada suspended all contracts with ArriveCan app company late last year, minister says

All federal government contracts with GC Strategies — the company at the centre of a blistering auditor general's report about the federal government's ArriveCan app — were suspended in November 2023 «out of caution,» Minister of Public Services and Procurement Jean-Yves Duclos told reporters Wednesday.

The Trudeau government came under fire Monday after Auditor General Karen Hogan reported that the government overpaid for the app and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) mishandled the file.

The app cost taxpayers about $60 million, a price tag considerably higher than initial estimates. But even that $60 million figure is an estimate, Hogan said, because the CBSA's record-keeping was so poor.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre sent a letter to the RCMP commissioner Tuesday asking the Mounties to investigate the development of the ArriveCan app.

«What the auditor general found on Monday is unacceptable,» Duclos said in French. «We've noted concerning findings, not only for GC Strategies» but also for other companies that worked on the app, he added.

Radio-Canada has verified that the federal government's 129 contracts since 2015 with GC Strategies — a private IT staffing company based in Ottawa — added up to over $239 million. La Presse first reported the figure.

A little more than $158 million of that sum — just over 66 per cent of the total — came from contracts awarded by the Canada Border Services Agency.

The second and third largest government clients of GC Strategies since 2015 are the Treasury Board ($21 million) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada ($17 million).

Duclos said the government implemented many of the recommendations in the auditor general's report in November 2023 «the