Federal departments paid ArriveCan contractor GCStrategies even when “little to no evidence” showed any work had been performed, Auditor-General Karen Hogan revealed. In 46% of the sample she reviewed, officials approved invoices without verifying deliverables which the report warns may breach the Financial Administration Act.
“Despite this, federal government officials consistently authorized payments,” Hogan wrote, unable to say whether those sign-offs were legitimate or illegal.
Hogan’s probe—ordered by Parliament after her 2024 audit exposed a “glaring disregard” for controls on the pandemic-era border app—traced 106 contracts worth $92.7 million awarded to the Ottawa-area staffing shop between 2015 and 2024. Forty-one of them were sole-sourced.
The government has already spent $64.5 million, almost half of it at the Canada Border Services Agency, where ArriveCan’s budget exploded from an $80,000 proof of concept to nearly $60 million.
In half the cases examined, departments could not prove subcontractors held required clearances before accessing federal systems; in more than one-fifth, unvetted personnel stayed on the job throughout the contract.
“Having contract resources working without the required security clearances weakens the government’s ability to protect sensitive information, assets, and work sites,” the audit warns.
Auditors also found that 58% of files contained missing or vague timesheets; Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada produced records for just one of 25 subcontractors on a single deal. One-third of files lacked evidence that subcontractors were even qualified, leaving departments blind to whether rates—set without any government-wide benchmark—were fair.
GCStrategies, a two-person brokerage run by former IT-sales reps Kristian Firth and Darren Anthony, takes a 15–30% cut while farming work to other consultants.
“Neither [partner] perform any IT work,” Firth previously told MPs. The firm is now banned from federal tenders for seven years after Public Services and Procurement Canada extended a 2024 suspension last week.
The CBSA has launched its own probe, and the RCMP searched Firth’s home in April; neither investigation has reported findings.
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