Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon to the members of the standing committee.
My name is Rob Stewart, and I'm the deputy minister of international trade. Until October 16 of this year, I was the deputy minister of public safety, and I believe that is the reason you are asking me to appear before you today. My remarks will focus on my time in that role.
As members are aware, the role of Public Safety Canada is to support the Minister of Public Safety and coordinate across portfolio agencies, namely, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Canada Border Services Agency, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Correctional Service Canada and the Parole Board of Canada. We are not mandated to provide oversight over the agencies; rather, the department's principal role is to bring a coordination function to the public safety portfolio and its five agencies.
Today, I will provide a brief overview of the timeline of the ArriveCAN app's development and use when I was deputy minister of public safety.
As you heard in previous testimonies, the ArriveCAN app was developed and launched as quickly as possible after the World Health Organization declared a pandemic on March 11, 2020. As the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Canada Border Services Agency stated, the app was developed to help limit the spread of COVID-19 and facilitate the flow of travel. It was developed on an emergency basis, and was up and running on April 29, 2020.
The application was needed once it became clear that the Public Health Agency of Canada could not efficiently manage a manual, paper‑based process to pass health information to the provinces and territories. This information was needed to quickly carry out compliance and enforcement activities, including quarantines.
As such, ArriveCAN is not a simple information-sharing app; it's a secure transactional app and web tool that used the internationally recognized SMART health card standard to verify proof of vaccination.
The CBSA did not have all the resources needed to develop and manage ArriveCAN while it continued to perform its essential day-to-day function in managing the border. For this reason, the CBSA used several professional services contracts for the development and maintenance of ArriveCAN based on their expertise.
As the pandemic situation evolved, the Government of Canada made regular adjustments to border measures under new orders in council.
There were, I think, over 80 orders in council, in total, over the two-and-a-half-year period. These changes were to ensure Canada's COVID-19 response remained effective, but they also meant regular updates to ArriveCAN. Some of these adjustments were minor, whereas others, such as proof of vaccination, molecular attestations and quarantine plans, were very significant.
Each of these needed to be developed and tested prior to launch to ensure the app was up to date and secure. That would be on several platforms, several technologies, and in several languages. To that end, the total budget for ArriveCAN also includes all the necessary work to operate, maintain, and upgrade the app. That included 70 updates and upgrades as the COVID measures changed.
That is the context in which this work took place over the past two and a half years.
I would be happy to answer your questions.