Thank you for the question.
I'll start with the findings. We're confident with the findings that we provided to Parliament in our reports. We have a rigorous audit process to make sure that the facts and information we provide are accurate.
With respect to the estimates, we did provide an estimate in the report around the overall cost, and we identified an amount per contractor. There are some facts that absolutely cannot be disputed. In particular, it is a fact that the contractors were paid the amounts that we listed in our report. I should say that they received at least those amounts. Some contractors received more.
What is really at issue is whether or not those amounts should be attributed to the ArriveCAN app versus work on another IT project, and this is where the problem of poor record-keeping by CBSA raises confusion and leaves these open questions. Ultimately, in our report we mentioned that the poor record-keeping led us to have to build up an estimate. We used the CBSA's financial systems, the contracting documents and other evidence to build up this estimate.
It is important to remember that our estimate includes more than what was spent on building the app. It also includes amounts for the implementation, maintenance and other associated costs, and this is because Parliament asked us to look at all aspects of the ArriveCAN app. The shortcomings in the documentation and the weak controls made it very difficult to precisely attribute costs among these elements of ArriveCAN, but ultimately, any number that is provided, whether it's the CBSA's or ours, is an estimate, because of the poor record-keeping.
I'll stop there.