OTTAWA — A newly released report from the Office of the Procurement Ombud (OPO) has prompted scathing media reports of the federal government’s handling of bidding and more for the ArriveCAN program.

The OPO’s ‘Procurement Practice Review of ArriveCan’ can be found here.

The Office of the Auditor General (OAG) launched its audit process in 2023 after the Procurement Ombud “determined there were reasonable grounds to launch a review of procurement activities associated with the creation, implementation and maintenance of ArriveCAN.”

The OAG audit looked at whether all aspects of ArriveCAN, including procurement and expected deliverables, “were managed with due regard for economy, efficiency, and effectiveness.”

As the travel industry well knows, ArriveCAN launched in 2020 as an app designed to help travellers navigate the many restrictions and requirements during the pandemic. ArriveCAN, the mask mandate and the rest of Canada’s final remaining COVID-19 travel restrictions were finally dropped effective Oct. 1, 2022.

The densely worded report includes this much-reported stat (point 107): “In roughly 76% of applicable contracts, resources proposed in the winning bid did not perform any work on the contract.”

A column in The National Post delves deeper into that stat and more, and notes that ArriveCAN’s $54 million price tag is astronomical compared to the original estimation of $80,000.

The OPO report includes 13 recommendations. The audit process continues with more analysis expected in February.