Millions spent on outsourced development of ArriveCan app...

And no one seems to know why it cost so much.

The Globe and Mail reported on the cost of the 'ArriveCan’ app today and collected the opinions of many on whether or not this cost was justified, or even makes any sense.

The consensus was a grand ‘NO’.

ArriveCan was an app created to collect private medical information and was used as a way to enforce unconstitutional measures on Canadian citizens. Up until October 1st, 2022, if you didn’t comply with the use of this app, which also pretty much required the user to own a ‘smart phone’, you could have been refused access to your flight and right to return to Canada, as a Canadian citizen.

I guess the people who developed this app and enforced it on Canada’s people forgot to read the first page in the Canadian passports that all Canadian citizens are entitled to possessing.

Figure 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_passport.

“…all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely, without delay or hindrance…”

Here is an example of one of the expressed opinions on this app.

“The people in the Canadian technology community that I’ve talked to are outraged, and I’ve talked to a lot today,” said Neil Selfe, a technology investment banker, and founder and chief executive officer of INFOR Financial Group Inc.

Figure 2: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-arrivecan-app-covid-19/.

It might interest the public to know, that the work was outsourced to more than 75 subcontractors. Why?

Further, the review found that the Ottawa-area company that received the most federal work on the app – GCstrategies – has fewer than five employees. The company told The Globe it is working with more than a dozen government departments, and delivers on its contracts through the use of more than 75 subcontractors. However, the company and the government say the identities of subcontractors cannot be revealed because of confidentiality provisions in federal procurement rules.

That last part sounds really sketchy to me. Outsourced to whom? Why is it confidential? I think I can guess. Can you?

Most experts and app developers said there was no justification for spending any more than $1.5 million for this very basic app. The final cost was $54 million, by the Globe and Mail’s estimate according to their analysis of federal contracts.

Fahd Ananta, an investor at Roach Capital who has previously held senior product lead positions at Snapchat and Shopify, said he can’t understand how the ArriveCan price climbed to more than $54-million.

He said, in his experience, building an app for a major corporate client would cost no more than about $1.5-million, and developers would be celebrating upon landing a contract that large.

This $54 million price tag is also twice what the government had recently been quoted to have spent.

So there you go. Another brick in the wall of waste, lies and horrors of the 21st century COVID-19 nightmare experience.

Figure 3: https://www.photowall.co.uk/brick-wall-world-map-wallpaper.