Canada’s border agency says low risk of COVID spreading via paper used to justify ArriveCAN

The controversial app, which was initially slated to cost taxpayers $80,000 but ended up costing over $50 million, is currently under investigation over allegations of corruption related to government contracts.

Despite Canadian federal authorities at the time admitting the risk of getting a COVID infection from paper forms was low, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) said it was that fear that spurred the creation of the federal government’s $59.5 million scandal-ridden ArriveCAN travel app.

The admission was made by the CBSA’s vice-president Jonathan Moor on April 3, during a testimony at a House of Commons public accounts committee meeting.

“We were told we could catch COVID from touching documents,” said Moor. “Our number one priority initially working with that was to get the electronic form up and running.”

Despite Moor’s claims, Canada’s Public Health Agency’s deputy chief public health officer, Dr. Howard Njoo, had told reporters at the start of the COVID crisis that there was no evidence the coronavirus could be transmitted via paper.

“For postal workers, I am not quite sure what the risk would be,” said Njoo on March 23, 2020. “The risk is not really out there. There should be no chance of interaction.”

The agency noted at the time that proper hand-washing was enough for federal workers who handled a lot of paperwork.

Despite the agency itself admitting there was no risk of virus transmission via paper forms, Moor on March 26, during testimony at the House of Commons government operations committee, again claimed getting infections from paper was a reason ArriveCAN was needed.

“A lot of the individual Border Services officers really were very reluctant to touch paper because the Public Health Agency had said you can catch Covid from touching paper, so the necessity to get a paperless process in place was really important,” said Moor.

Moor, during testimony, also defended his agency’s work on the travel app, but admitted, “We know we made mistakes.”

“In some self-respecting countries there are internal controls,” she added.

She then asked Moor if he thought he did a “good job,” to which he replied, “I do believe I did my job well during the pandemic.”

“This is a time where people were crossing the border to return back to Canada when we were told we could catch COVID from touching documents,” he said.

Besides the risk of getting infected from paper as being a reason for needing to create ArrriveCAN, the CBSA had also suggested other reasons why it was needed. In a report from 2023, it claimed that the app had saved travelers “five minutes” of time at border crossings, however, this claim was disputed by the Customs and Immigration Union.

The CBSA has also claimed that ArriveCAN “saved lives,” which is a claim it has recognized as being uncertain.

“The Agency cannot quantify the exact number of lives indirectly saved through ArriveCan,” it told MPs on December 7, 2023.

Canadians were told ArriveCAN was supposed to have cost only $80,000, but the number quickly ballooned to $54 million, with the latest number showing it cost some $59.5 million.

As for the app itself, it was riddled with tech glitches along with privacy concerns from users.

ArriveCAN was introduced in April 2020 by the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and made mandatory in November 2020. The app was used by the federal government to track the COVID jab status of those entering the country and enforce quarantines when deemed necessary.

When the app was mandated, all travelers entering Canada had to use it to submit their travel and contact information as well as any COVID vaccination details before crossing the border or boarding a flight.

In February, LifeSiteNews reported that Conservative Party of Canada MPs accused the CBSA of lying to Parliament over sweetheart contracting approvals concerning ArriveCAN.

Troubled Travel apps’ creation is currently under investigation

Canadian Auditor General Karen Hogan announced an investigation of ArriveCAN in November 2022 after the House of Commons voted 173-149 for a full audit of the controversial app.

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates (OGGO) is investigating how various companies such as Dalian, Coaradix, and GC Strategies received millions in taxpayer dollars to develop the contentious quarantine-tracking program.

LifeSiteNews reported that an investigation into ArriveCAN by Alexander Jeglic, the government’s procurement ombudsman, revealed that three-quarters of the contractors who were paid to work on ArriveCAN did not do anything in building the scandal-plagued app.

The CBSA was tasked with building the ArriveCAN app, and thus far, the investigation’s report singles out GC Strategies, saying the two-man company did not prove that its list of subcontractors was qualified to work on the app.

The procurement ombudsman’s report also found “numerous examples” in which GC Strategies “had simply copied and pasted” required work experience that was listed by the government for its contractors.

The report also noted that it was unusual the government used criteria for the app’s tender that were “overly restrictive and favoured” GC Strategies, which won the contract bid despite the fact no other bids were submitted.

Last year, LifeSiteNews reported on two tech entrepreneurs testifying before the committee that during the development of the ArriveCAN travel app they saw firsthand how federal managers engaged in “extortion,” “corruption,” and “ghost contracting,” all at the expense of taxpayers.

Related Topics:#AnthonyMurdoch #ArriveCanApp #CanadaBorderServicesAgency #LifeSiteNews

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COVID-19

FDA requires new warning on mRNA COVID shots due to heart damage in young men

Published on July 12, 2025

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By Doug Mainwaring

Pfizer and Moderna’s mRNA COVID shots must now include warnings that they cause ‘extremely high risk’ of heart inflammation and irreversible damage in males up to age 24.

The Trump administration’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it will now require updated safety warnings on mRNA COVID-19 shots to include the “extremely high risk” of myocarditis/pericarditis and the likelihood of long-term, irreversible heart damage for teen boys and young men up to age 24.

The required safety updates apply to Comirnaty, the mRNA COVID shot manufactured by Pfizer Inc., and Spikevax, the mRNA COVID shot manufactured ModernaTX, Inc.

According to a press release, the FDA now requires each of those manufacturers to update the warning about the risks of myocarditis and pericarditis to include information about:

the estimated unadjusted incidence of myocarditis and/or pericarditis following administration of the 2023-2024 Formula of mRNA COVID-19 shots and
the results of a study that collected information on cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (cardiac MRI) in people who developed myocarditis after receiving an mRNA COVID-19 injection.

The FDA has also required the manufacturers to describe the new safety information in the adverse reactions section of the prescribing information and in the information for recipients and caregivers.

Additionally, the fact sheets for healthcare providers and for recipients and caregivers for Moderna COVID-19 shot and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 shot, which are authorized for emergency use in individuals 6 months through 11 years of age, have also been updated to include the new safety information in alignment with the Comirnaty and Spikevax prescribing information and information for recipients and caregivers.

In a video published on social media, Dr. Vinay Prasad, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation & Research Chief Medical and Scientific Officer, explained the alarming reasons for the warning updates.

While heart problems arose in approximately 8 out of 1 million persons ages 6 months to 64 years following reception of the cited shots, that number more than triples to 27 per million for males ages 12 to 24.

Prasad noted that multiple studies have arrived at similar findings.

Bruce Dowbiggin

The Covid 19 Disaster: When Do We Get The Apologies?

Published on July 10, 2025

Bruce Dowbiggin

Breaking: Drs. Bonnie Henry and Theresa Tam have been appointed to the Order of Canada in recognition of their role in the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

And so the game of covid liar’s poker has more winners. It’s like awarding the captain of the Titanic the Nobel Prize for his work on floatation. As we now know these two— and the other WHO finger puppets in Canada— made the Covid 19 episode worse, not better, with their prescription for panic, positives and punishment. Even as they knew the truth about the limits of the virus and the efficacy of vaccines they continued to spew fallacious PCR data on the extent of the sickness and who was at risk.

Put simply, to protect vulnerable seniors they said kids were also at great risk. Which was unconscionable.

In this they encouraged Justin Trudeau in his worst instincts, combining his father’s insouciant disregard for civil rights (sending in the police) with his mother’s mental stability. Propped up by Team Tam and its U.S. allies such as Anthony Fauci, this hysteria peaked with a sequestered PM crushing the Truckers Convoy’s vaccine protest with emergency measures and destruction of civil liberties.

Lest you wonder, this overreach was recognized at the time. Justice Maclean wrote at the trial of Convoy organizers, “Defendants & other persons remain at liberty to engage in a peaceful, lawful & safe protest”. On Feb. 16, he continued a no-honking order, again writing: “Defendants & other persons remain at liberty to engage in a peaceful, lawful & safe protest.”

The leaders of the Convoy, lynched by Canadian media’s phoney claims of right-wing American interference, are still fighting jail time on charges of nuisance. While violent criminals are routinely released on bail or absolved.

Justice Richard Mosley later concluded that while the convoy was a disruption of public order, it didn’t constitute a national emergency and invoking the act “does not bear the hallmarks of reasonableness — justification, transparency and intelligibility.” But in real time Team Tam made no attempts to correct the wilder misgivings about Covid (lockdowns, mandatory vaccines). Trudeau was given a hall pass. Needless to say the purchased media made things infinitely worse regurgitating these mistakes.

In short, they knew better but hid the truth. But why pick on Henry and Tam? Under Trudeau and his wingman Jagmeet Singh this was the golden age of lies and prevarications in Canada and the U.S. No apologies were ever offered when the truth emerged.

As we’ve noted before, Trudeau cried with a teddy bear carefully positioned over 751 alleged unmarked graves in a known Catholic cemetery that the local Cowessess band abandoned. The Liberal government knew the claim of 215 “children’s graves” was false, and still ran with it to get Trudeau his photo-op. Naturally the CBC Media Party played (and still plays) accomplice in this farce as the Canadian flag was lowered to half-mast for six months and Trudeau ratted out Canada at the UN as a genocidal state.

There were more, plenty more Trudeau scandals that media endorsed and then stood by even as the truth was revealed. SNC Lavalin. We Charity. Arrive Can app. Firing indigenous justice minister. Chinese drug infiltration/ money laundering. Nazi Celebrated in Parliament. Welcome To Canada immigration. Nova Scotia massacre. McKinsey Consultation. Blackface. And so on.

And were there apologies when it came time to make the Trudeau Liberals accountable? No, they staged a media circus over Donald Trump’s assertion of 51st state. All the fake news and deliberate lies went poof, allowing Mark Carney to seamlessly assume the PM job.

Lest We Forget Pt. 2 it was not exclusive to Canada. As we are now learning: Barack Obama and Joe Biden sat in an August 3, 2016 Situation Room briefing and said, yeah, let the highest officials in our administration fabricate evidence to frame the opposing party candidate Donald Trump. Obama. Biden. Comey. McCabe. Strzok. Page. Rice. Etc.

Knowingly using the faked Clinton campaign ‘Steele Dossier’ hoax, they launched a federal investigation into the Trump presidential campaign that lasted three years after Trump was sworn in as the nation’s 45th President. Arresting and jailing his partners and colleagues. Inventing fake stories for their media enablers. Let’s repeat that. Saint Obama knew there was criminal activity in the process but let his henchmen try to fix an election.

And when the ruse was uncovered no one apologized. No one in authority was fired or jailed. The Pulitzer Prizes awarded to the NT Times and Washington Post for disseminating the DEMs scandal were not rescinded. Nor were they given back by the lying newspapers.

The concerted frauds of the same U.S. DOJ, FBI and State Departments were fed by media and accepted by gullible publics in Canada and America. The fantastical 2020 election results were likewise drummed into the public irrespective of the sudden “appearance” of 27 million new votes during a pandemic.

It was all a fitting preamble to the 2020-2024 Biden senility scandal with Democrats running a man they knew was in full dementia. In the 2020 election Biden was hidden from public view, the better to let media attack Trump for spurious charges launched by partisan DNC attorneys in Georgia, New York and DC. Even then it took the suppression of Hunter Biden’s incriminating laptop just prior to the election to get his father elected.

The dance of denial continued in Biden’s term as he physically and mentally deteriorated before the American public. But inquiries about who was running the government if not Biden were harshly suppressed. Media lackeys noted he was sharp as a tack mentally and in tip-top physical condition when he wasn’t falling down stairs.

It took the stunning 2024 debate debacle with Trump to strip away the lies about Biden’s health, now said to be advanced prostate cancer and Parkinson’s. The media, caught in their own lies about Biden’s condition, offered no apologies and tried to blame Biden’s stutter for the performance.. Right.

These were the two greatest U.S. hoaxes from people who’d cried hoax incessantly. They were hardly the only abuse of public trust. Some of the perpetrators are said to now be under investigation— even as they hand out awards to each other. The media’s credibility is shattered and yet they still blame others. Jaded voters are taking a “we’ll see” approach. But expectations of any change in DC or Ottawa are limited.

As Stephen Taylor posted on X: “Turns out for Liberals, ‘elbows up’ just means ‘noses up’ like it always has.”

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.