International Trade committee  Again, this is something we should strive for. The future is there; we're going to keep doing this. We had ArriveCAN, which cost a tenth of this. I don't know; I'm just putting that out there.

Public Accounts committee  After that, we were working with lawyers and getting our stuff together as far as forms and everything were concerned, getting my divestiture done and that sort of stuff during the time frame, and that has already been submitted to DND as well, but, due to the hype and everything else around this particular ArriveCAN app, I ended up having to put in my resignation. I was still on probation because I was only there for 168 days.

International Trade committee  We have a minister of digital government, or something like that. Why do we keep outsourcing this stuff—ArriveCAN, CARM—to a company like Deloitte? The amount is $500 million-plus, and there are concerns that it will balloon much larger. For that amount of money, we could develop the in-house digital expertise within government to do all that.

Public Accounts committee  The other side of it is that, under “Findings”, there is a paragraph in there that says, “We found that 18% of invoices submitted by contractors that we tested did not [provide enough information] to determine whether expenses related to ArriveCAN or another information technology (IT) project.” I have a good number of notes on this. I've gone through the entire thing. I have a lot of questions and things like that.

Public Accounts committee  Could you describe the nature of your contributions to the ArriveCAN application?

Public Accounts committee  Then, obviously, in the early 2020s, we had this whole COVID-outbreak thing happen and all of this craziness that happened with the ramp-up to getting ArriveCAN out the door. We were a small part of that; we were $4.9 million of that—$1.6 million per year and 20 part-time contracts. From that perspective, that's where I think it started. When it finished was May 2023, from what I understand, and that was certainly well before I started with the public service.

Public Accounts committee  Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(g), the committee is resuming consideration of report 1 of the 2024 reports of the Auditor General of Canada, entitled “Report 1: ArriveCAN”, referred to the committee on Monday, February 12, 2024. I would like to welcome our witness. David Yeo, business owner, is joining us, as I've said, by video conference. Mr. Yeo, I appreciate you making yourself available to us today.

Information & Ethics committee  No, and we have a very healthy set of feedback loops and accountability tools in Canada. I'll venture out and point you to the ArriveCAN issue, which has blown up in the last little while. We have a parliamentary committee at work. We have at least three—I think it's four—officers of Parliament at work, and we do have a police investigation.

Public Accounts committee  There are a few contributing factors to the number of reports being released today. As you know, in February, my office released a report on ArriveCAN, and we have three more reports coming in May. We've spread out some of our reports that are typically all tabled in March in order to respond in a nimble fashion to requests from the House of Commons to audit certain matters.

Public Accounts committee  I will now adjourn this meeting and remind colleagues that we're back at 3:30 after question period to continue our study on ArriveCAN. Thank you. I'll see you all later.

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns  With regard to the ArriveCan application, broken down by each department or agency that worked on the application: (a) how many employees worked on the application; and (b) how many man-hours and working days were spent working on the application?

Committees of the House  The first one is, in both official languages, the 15th report of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, a.k.a. the mighty OGGO, in relation to the motion adopted on Thursday, February 22, which asked the House to recommend that the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner investigate allegations of wrongdoing related to ArriveCAN. The second one I have the honour to present, in both official languages, is the 16th report of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, entitled “Supplementary Estimates (C), 2023-24: Votes 1c and 5c under Department of Public Works and Government Services, Vote 1c under Privy Council Office, Vote 1c under Shared Services Canada and Votes 1c, 15c, 20c and 30c under Treasury Board Secretariat”.

Finance  The cost of living continues to rise, federal spending seems to be out of control, and then there are the various financial scandals, with ArriveCAN being the most recent. My question for the Minister of Finance is very simple. Will she finally introduce a plan to balance the budget when she tables her next budget on April 16?

Government Operations committee  Chair, with that in mind, and since it's all the rage today, I'm going to move a motion: According to committee testimony, the Government of Canada uses 635 staff augmentation companies or IT companies the do not perform any actual IT work themselves, and the Government does not even know how many of these companies have two employees or less, like ArriveCan contractors GC Strategies, the committee report to the House its request to the Parliamentary Budget Officer to complete a full report on the increased costs taxpayers pay due to the government using 635 staff augmentation companies and that this report is completed by June 1 2024.

Government Operations committee  Atwin's amendment, I'm a little confused about going all the way back to 2010 when we're talking about ArriveCAN specifically in this amendment and a new initiative that the Canada Border Services Agency is currently working on. I don't know what the timeline is in regard to when they began work on this project.