“We found issues with documentation. We cannot identify an actual source of why there is so much documentation missing, but there is certainly a high level of missing documentation,” Procurement Ombudsman Alexander Jeglic testified to the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates (OGGO) on Jan. 31.
“We had systemic non-compliance with contractual obligations.”
On Jan. 29, Mr. Jeglic’s office released a report on the procurement process for the ArriveCan app, which was used to track the COVID-19 vaccination status of travellers entering Canada during the pandemic. After investigating contract files for 41 ArriveCan-related procurements identified by the Canada Border Service Agency, Mr. Jeglic found that a total of 28 did no work on the app.
“In roughly 76 percent of applicable contracts, resources proposed in the winning bid did not perform any work on the contract,” Mr. Jeglic told OGGO, which has been investigating the development of ArriveCan for several months. The procurement ombudsman called this an example of “bait and switch,” where contractors promise high-quality resources during the bidding process, but then provide resources that fail to meet the expected standards.
Mr. Jeglic also said it was “very concerning” and “bizarre” how often documents were missing when it came to ArriveCan’s development. Mr. Jeglic said his department could not determine whether the documents were absent because they were deleted, never submitted in the first place, or because “conversations happened in an informal setting or over the phone that should have happened in another way.”
The ombudsman also acknowledged that due to COVID-19 forcing employees to work from home and keep records online as opposed to on paper, the record-keeping process was likely disrupted.
Procurement ‘Difficult to Navigate’
Conservatives on OGGO have repeatedly claimed that ArriveCan could have been developed for far less than its $54-million price tag. The MPs have also taken issue with the IT company GC Strategies’ involvement in its development. The two-man company was paid $8.9 million as a general contractor on the ArriveCan project in 2020 before it outsourced the work to six other companies, pocketing a commission of between 15 and 30 percent.Conservative MP Kelly Block asked Mr. Jeglic about a paragraph in his report that said there was “no written record of a request or non-competitive solicitation” being sent to GC Strategies for work on ArriveCan. The ombudsman said while he did not want to speculate, it was “unusual” that there was no correspondence on file.
“It sounds administrative in nature, but it is the bedrock of demonstrating many of the tenants of public procurement. How can you be fair, open, and transparent if you cannot demonstrate any of those aspects?” Mr. Jeglic said. “It’s a legitimate concern not only in ArriveCan but in public procurement in general.”
When asked by Ms. Block if the issues with Canada’s procurement system could be fixed by regulation, Mr. Jeglic said a number of structural changes were needed in order to make the system less complex and more accessible to qualified candidates.
“Even someone who has an incredible amount of experience in procurement still finds it incredibly difficult to navigate,” he said.
“It’s a very disappointing outcome because when you run a competitive process, you’re telling the universe that you want the best outcome and you want competition. But yet you structure the mandatory criteria in a way that essentially eliminates the competitive aspect,” he added.
