QUESTION PERIOD — Public Safety
Canada Border Services Agency
October 6, 2022
Honourable senators, my question is for the government leader in the Senate. Senator Gold, in a recent report to Parliament in response to a question from the opposition, your government misleadingly stated that the deeply flawed ArriveCAN app had cost taxpayers a total of approximately $29.5 million for developing, maintaining and promoting this app. What the report did not make clear is that the amount only covers the cost for the fiscal year that ended last March and that an additional $25 million has been approved for the current fiscal year by the CBSA — which expects to use that full amount — bringing the total closer to twice what the government reported in their parliamentary report.
Senator Gold, why does your government have such difficulty providing truthful and forthright responses to questions on behalf of hard-working Canadians who want to know where their money is going? I know that sometimes you are frustrated by the question, but is it simply that the government does not know how to count or that they deliberately fudge the numbers in order to give a false representation of the facts?
I sometimes pause, and perhaps my body language betrays me, because I am trying to ensure that my answer is factual, responsible, that it isn’t misleading and certainly doesn’t contain assumptions which I regularly have to remind you I do not accept.
I do not accept that this government cannot count. I do not accept what I think is a rather irresponsible allegation of deliberately trying to deceive Canadians.
The ArriveCAN app was designed and implemented to protect Canadians, to make sure that we had the best tools available in as quick a time as possible to be aware of and track cases of people infected with COVID coming into Canada.
As is the case with so many measures that were introduced quickly — both by the government and, in some cases, through legislation that we passed quickly in this house — it was imperfect. There is no question that this will be true of this app and many other apps.
The government still believes that it played a useful purpose, and the money invested in it was money invested for the safety of Canadians.
Senator Gold, the only people who feel betrayed in this country are Canadian taxpayers who have been betrayed by this government for a number reasons.
Senator Gold, now that the mandatory use of the ArriveCAN app has finally and rightfully been scrapped by your government — that is how useful it has been — why does the CBSA still expect to use the full amount that has been budgeted for this fiscal year, which doesn’t end until March 31, 2023? It’s a simple question.
Also, will your government do the right thing and forgo enforcing financial penalties wrongfully levied against Canadians because of their inability to use this flawed app?
There have been a number of hard-working Canadians who reached out to my office and who have been fined up to $18,000 for the simple fact that there was a glitch or they did not have access to ArriveCAN. At the end of the day, don’t you think it is only responsible to remove these fines, or has this flawed app become another tax grab at the expense of these betrayed Canadian taxpayers?
If your question is whether I agree with your proposed solution, the answer is no.
