Government Operations committee  Rapid prototyping in the form of hackathons is great, but it's not a substitute for a finished product. It can often mislead you. Just because you can do something in a week doesn't mean that this thing is going to be the final product. I would love to see groups within government doing hackathons on projects when it isn't a crisis.

Government Operations committee  I'll do my best to answer in French. First of all, I would say that it's because of the advancement of other countries in relation to Canada. Many other countries have made progress, such as England and Ukraine, for example. The notes I provided contain a lot of information on the subject.

Government Operations committee  I couldn't agree with you more.

Government Operations committee  Yes, we are paying a markup, because it's in a public health crisis at a time when tech developers are in high demand. The private sector is compensated ridiculously more than the public sector for technological developers. I would refer you to what Amanda Clarke, Sean Boots and Catherine Luelo said on the subject.

Government Operations committee  It was Thanksgiving weekend. They all decided to stick around for the weekend and do it. I don't think people were in a similar situation in March or April 2020. This shop already has access in both cases to version control software, existing cloud-hosting accounts, tools for integrated development environments, tools like Slack, or whatever else.

Government Operations committee  The CDS is our best attempt to do that at the moment. The way I would explain it is like Lego. If you're trying to build something out of Lego, you have component pieces that you can put together to build a house fairly quickly. Our government already has applications like GC Notify, which is a tool that will send out notifications very simply.

Government Operations committee  First of all, I'm not a public health official and I'm not an ethicist. I believe the quote was about witnessing mass wrongdoings, such as the ArriveCAN app. I cannot speak to whether or not the ArriveCAN app was tied to any kind of quarantine or other public health practice, but I think that saying that we have mismanagement of government such as the ArriveCAN app seems prejudicial and I'm not speaking to the effects on citizens as part of travel.

Government Operations committee  Yes, I've been following the news. I think it is not my place to decide what is an acceptable cost to the public in a matter of public health. I think that's better placed for ethicists and philosophers.

Government Operations committee  I don't think that I can speak to anything other than the cost of software development and the efficacy of that. I don't have any insight into the operation of the application that was delivered by the people using it or the technology used to scan and verify any documentation that may have happened.

Government Operations committee  I'm speaking strictly to the software development side of things.

Government Operations committee  I noticed one of the members of the committee mentioned mass wrongdoings, such as the ArriveCAN app. As a citizen who has been studying this carefully, I don't think we've arrived at the point that there are mass wrongdoings of any measure. I think that in fact the leaders of both Lazer and TribalScale agreed with my assessment in no uncertain terms very publicly when I published it.

Government Operations committee  I can't speak to—

Government Operations committee  Absolutely. The first thing you have to do with any application is design it. In 2020, there was no COVID border app to copy, so ArriveCAN had to be invented. The design process itself is difficult because you have many stakeholders. You have to understand how they are going to use the application and make sure that you've met their needs.

Government Operations committee  Thank you very much. I'd like to begin by thanking the committee for inviting me to discuss the ArriveCAN application. ArriveCAN cost too much to build. Canadians should be angry, not because of the cost, but because of what our inability to deliver good technology quickly means for the future of our society.