OTTAWA (LifeSiteNews) – New estimates show Canadian taxpayers will be on the hook for at least $54 million by year’s end for the much-detested and contentious ArriveCAN travel app.
According to a Globe and Mail analysis of ArriveCAN, the millions in costs for the app are more than twice what the Canadian federal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau claims they are.
Data shows that Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), which is the main agency behind the app’s use, had stated in reports that it had spent $19.7 million to develop the app, with $4.9 million to sustain it.
An unnamed source, according to the Globe and Mail, said there was another $25 million allocated for the app until year’s end.
Canada’s Public Health Agency wrote in response to an inquiry from a Conservative MP that the agency had spent an extra $4.9 million to maintain the app.
Further analysis by the Globe and Mail noted that contracts associated with the ArriveCAN app are not clear, and even some work done supposedly for the app had nothing to do with it.
A recent report showed that a programmer was able to duplicate the ArriveCAN app in under two days, with others noting the app should have cost well under $1 million to create.
Starting October 1, the federal government ended all remaining COVID mandates in Canada regarding travel. Masks on planes and trains are optional, there is no more COVID testing, and vaccine-free Canadians will no longer be subject to mandatory quarantine.
The much-hated ArriveCAN travel app was also made optional, and a mandate that foreigners must be jabbed to enter Canada was removed.
ArriveCAN was introduced in April 2020 by the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and made mandatory in November 2020.
“If you don’t submit your travel information and proof of vaccination using ArriveCAN, you could be fined $5,000,” the government said at the time.
All travelers entering Canada had to use the ArriveCAN app to submit their travel and contact information, as well as any COVID vaccination details, before crossing the border or boarding a flight.
In the fall of 2021, the Trudeau government banned the vaccine free from traveling by air, rail or sea both domestically and internationally.
Company with most ArriveCAN funding has no physical office and less than five workers
The Globe and Mail’s analysis also showed that the CBSA had stated a total of five companies had been given contracts that were associated with ArriveCAN.
However, documents presented to Canada’s Parliament show that there have been at least 27 contracts among 23 different companies that have been working on ArriveCAN.
Notably, GCstrategies based out of Ottawa got the most money in ArriveCAN contracts, totaling around $9 million.
However, GCstrategies has less than five employees and no physical office.
ArriveCAN has been rife with controversy since it became mandatory.
LifeSiteNews reported last month that a pregnant mother who went into early labour after a traumatic confrontation in one of Canada’s largest airports, when she refused to use ArriveCAN, blamed the loss of her baby boy on the app.
Top constitutional lawyers have said ArriveCAN violates an individual’s constitutional rights, adding that people’s civil liberties on paper have been rendered “meaningless effectively in the real world” because of COVID.