Tech entrepreneurs allege corruption, misuse of taxpayer funds in development of Canadian travel app

One of the experts who testified before the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates recently exposed shady subcontracting deals that were not transparent during ArriveCan’s development

Two tech entrepreneurs recently testified before a government committee that during the development of the federal government’s much-maligned ArriveCAN travel app they saw firsthand how federal managers engaged in “extortion,” corruption, and “ghost contracting,” all at the expense of the taxpayer.

During a Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates (OGGO) meeting on October 26, Amir Morv, the co-founder of software company Botler AI, told Canadian MPs on the committee that “acts of misconduct rarely happen in isolation.”

“It is almost always symptomatic of a larger existence and tolerance of misconduct,” he said.

“Individuals engaged in such conduct are also prime targets of exploitation and extortion,” he said.

Botler, which is a Quebec-based company, was a subcontractor for the Canada Border Service Agency (CBSA) and recently exposed shady subcontracting deals that were not transparent during ArriveCan’s development.

According to a Globe and Mail report, the CBSA gave three companies involved in making the app more than $17 million.

Currently, the OGGO is investigating how various companies such as Dalian, Coaradix, and GC Strategies received millions of taxpayer money to develop the contentious ArriveCAN app.

ArriveCAN was introduced in April 2020 by the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and made mandatory in November 2020. The app was used by the federal government to track COVID jab status.

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.

The program was once described by a Canadian border agent as “tyranny.” It cost taxpayers a whopping $54 million, which MPs pointed out was a suspiciously high expense.

LifeSiteNews reported earlier this month that the federal government was exposed for hiding a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) investigation into the ArriveCan app from auditors.

Companies ‘openly’ engaged in various criminal activities

Morv and Botler co-founder Ritika Dutt testified to the committee about private conversations they had with a managing partner of GC Strategies Kristian Firth, a company with only two employees.

CSBA Director General Cameron MacDonald had urged the two to work directly with GC Strategies. However, the two quickly discovered that all of their work was being run through another company, called Dalian, but they were not told this.

Morv told MPs that the contractors are “openly engaged in various criminal activities” and that they openly “commit fraud on the government by promising influence and requesting material benefit” in return.

In essence, Morv exposed how private companies were being used to funnel taxpayer money into their coffers without public oversight.

Morv also claimed that Firth had regularly boasted that he and his friends, who were senior government officials with contracting authority, said they had “dirt” on each other, which was used as a sort of guaranteed mutual silence tactic regarding the corruption.

Notably, Morv stated that the contractors would not have acted in the way they did if they did not have “backing from factions within the government.”

He then said that part of the federal government had “mobilized to bury Botler’s reports and protect this corruption” after it had sent two reports to the CBSA.

As for Dutt, she told MPs that in December 2022 her emails were hacked and “every record of an email that Kristian Firth sent me was mysteriously deleted.”

She said that this came at the same time CBSA president Erin O’Gorman had said she was going to consider whether to send the reports to the RCMP.

Dutt said that they “watched and waited patiently for someone to do the right thing,” to “act on our reports.”

“But instead, we were heartbroken as they lied. They lied to us. They lied to you at OGGO, they lied to Parliament, and they lied to Canadian taxpayers,” she added.

So-called ‘ghost contracting’ exposed

Morv was asked by Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) MP Stephanie Kusie to describe what so-called “ghost contracting” was when it concerned the development of the ArriveCAN app.

According to Morv, ghost contracting could have been how GC Strategies, a company with only two employees, ended up with $11.2 to help develop the travel app.

In essence, “ghost contracting” is a middleman added to the mix but does not have any sort of legal trace back to the government. The companies do no work, but they make a “significant amount of commission,” Morv said.

Morv said that he is not sure Dalion or Coradix, who received a combined $4.3 million to help develop the app, fit the “ghost contracting” definition; they had hired ghost contractors to do the actual work.

CPC MP Garnett Genuis said that the whole evolving ArriveCAN scandal showed a “horrific system of government corruption” that went beyond the travel app.

He told Morv, “You’re describing a system in which government contracts go to preferred contractors, they claim to subcontract to others, who they claim do the work and they provide reports on this.”

He added, “But those subcontractors might not be doing the work. They might not know they’re being named. They might not even exist in some cases. And then this system allows those initial contractors to overbill taxpayers. Is what’s going on here?”

Morv said, “In this case, the system encouraged the contractors to actually do this. That is correct.”

When the Trudeau government introduced the ArriveCAN app, they made sure of quick compliance by saying at the time, “If you don’t submit your travel information and proof of vaccination using ArriveCAN, you could be fined $5,000.”

Top constitutional lawyers have said ArriveCAN violates an individual’s constitutional rights and that people’s civil liberties on paper have been rendered “meaningless effectively in the real world” because of COVID.

Eventually, in the fall of 2021, the Trudeau government banned the vaccine free from traveling by air, rail, or sea both domestically and internationally.

This policy resulted in thousands losing their jobs or being placed on leave for non-compliance.

Trudeau “suspended” the COVID travel vaccine mandates on June 20, 2022. Last October, the Canadian federal government ended all remaining COVID mandates regarding travel, including masking on planes and trains, COVID testing, and allowing vaccine-free Canadians to no longer be subject to mandatory quarantine.

More than 700 vaccine-free Canadians negatively affected by federal COVID jab dictates have banded together to file a multimillion-dollar class-action lawsuit against Trudeau’s federal government.

Related Topics:#AmirMorv #ArriveCanApp #BotlerAI #CanadaBorderServiceAgency #LifeSiteNews #StandingCommitteeOnGovernmentOperations feature

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Saskatchewan appeals court upholds COVID-era gov’t restrictions on outdoor gatherings

Published on May 22, 2024

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Two individuals had challenged the province’s limit of 10 people at outdoor gatherings in 2021 ‘as violations of their Charter-protected freedoms of thought, belief, opinion and expression, association, and peaceful assembly.’

In a blow to Canadians’ freedom, a provincial court in Saskatchewan dismissed an appeal of a Charter challenge against COVID dictates from 2021 that limited outdoor gatherings to 10 people.

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) issued a press release expressing disappointment that the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal “dismissed” the Charter challenge from Jasmin Grandel and Darrell Mills.

“The unanimous decision was released on May 15, 2024, by Justice J.A. Kalmakoff writing for the three-panel hearing of the Court of Appeal for Saskatchewan,” the JCCF noted.

Andre Memauri, the attorney representing Grandel and Mills, said he is “carefully reviewing the Court’s decision and advising our clients accordingly.”

In February, there was hope for Grandel and Mills after the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal announced it would hear the appeal.

In 2021, the plaintiffs first challenged the government’s outdoor restrictions mandate with help from lawyers from the JCCF, saying they were “as violations of their Charter-protected freedoms of thought, belief, opinion and expression, association, and peaceful assembly.”

This challenge, however, was not successful. On September 20, 2022, Justice D.B. Konkin of the Court of King’s Bench of Saskatchewan upheld the government’s COVID dictates.

Memauri had said regarding the first ruling, “Our infectious disease specialist made it clear at the lower court that the outdoor transmission of COVID-19 was negligible, much like every other respiratory illness in history.”

“There was no compelling basis for the Saskatchewan government to impose such extreme restrictions on people’s rights to assemble, express themselves and associate outdoors. The rule of law means that laws should be enforced equally, but the Saskatchewan Government encouraged and supported Black Lives Matter protests outdoors in large numbers while ticketing people who six months later protested the violations of their Charter freedoms.”

Grandel and Mills had attended various protests against the mandates that resulted in large fines for violating Public Health Orders.

The JCCF pointed out a double standard, noting that when the 10-person outdoor gathering limits were in place the government of Saskatchewan, “including Premier Scott Moe and Chief Medical Health Officer Saqib Shahab, publicly supported large Black Lives Matter protests in violation of outdoor gathering restrictions.”

“Meanwhile, Canadians attending protests against Covid gathering restrictions were targeted and fined only six months later by the same government,” the JCCF said.

COVID vaccine mandates split Canadian society. The mRNA shots themselves have been linked to a multitude of negative and often severe side effects in children.

The jabs also have connections to cell lines derived from aborted babies. As a result of this, many Catholics and other Christians refused to take them.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, British Columbia still mandates COVID shots for healthcare workers who are not in a remote setting.

While all other provinces that had healthcare worker COVID jab mandates have lifted them, workers who were discriminated against for refusing to take the shots have had mixed results in legal battles.

Last month, LifeSiteNews reported that Canadian nurse Kristen Nagle, who was found guilty of violating Ontario’s COVID rules for participating in an anti-lockdown rally and speaking out against COVID mandates, recently had what she described as a “half-win” in court. Her fine was massively reduced, but she was still sentenced to two years’ probation that she said is designed to stop her from “speaking out or going against public health measures.”

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Biden’s Navy secretary says he has ‘no regrets’ about firing 5,000+ unvaxxed sailors, Marines

Published on May 22, 2024

Todayville

Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro

From LifeSiteNews

By Doug Mainwaring

“You’re firing qualified people who are well-trained, and you sit here so smugly [and] act like none of that has any impact on the readiness of our Navy.”

The secretary of the U.S. Navy told senators that he has “no regrets” about the firing of thousands of sailors and Marines who declined to take the COVID-19 shots.

During a Capitol Hill hearing, Senator Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri) pressed Secretary Carlos Del Toro on the impact that both DEI (“Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion”) training courses and COVID jab mandates have had on Navy recruitment and pushed back against the Navy’s prioritization of “climate change” over keeping pace with America’s adversaries.

Schmitt asked Del Toro about the 1,878 sailors and the 3,746 Marines who were fired for not taking the COVID shot: “Do you regret that?”

“I have no regrets,” declared the Navy chief.

“You have recruitment challenges,” said Sen. Schmitt. “You’re firing qualified people who are well-trained, and you sit here so smugly [and] act like none of that has any impact on the readiness of our Navy.”

Del Toro, a Biden appointee, added that “we recontacted 3,500 of the 4,800 people who were fired. You know how many actually decided to come back to the Navy? Two.”

“Shocker,” declared Schmitt, who indicated that it was no wonder the disenfranchised personnel all but unanimously chose not to return because of “the level of disrespect they received from their government.”

The Secretary of the Navy says to Sen. @Eric_Schmitt that he has "no regrets" about firing the thousands of service members who refused to take the covid vax and then smugly says that none of them wanted to come back to the Navy when contacted as if that's a good thing. pic.twitter.com/MzMv7R4qMu

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) May 16, 2024

The Navy has attained less than 70% of its recruitment goal for the first half of 2024, according to a statement from Sen. Schmitt’s office, and is expected to be short roughly 6,700 sailors from its 2024 recruitment goal of 40,600.

In 2023, the Navy fell short of its recruiting goal by 20%.

Sen. Schmitt suggested that the COVID-19 jab firings aren’t the only reason that recruiting is down.

“Do you believe that the obsession that the political leadership has right now with DEI has helped or hurt recruiting efforts?” Schmitt asked Del Toro.

“I don’t think DEI has hurt recruiting efforts at all,” claimed the Navy Secretary.

Schmitt went further and suggested that the Navy is indoctrinating its personnel through its DEI 101 materials, promoting “cultural Marxism.”

Last June, Secretary Del Toro hosted a Department of the Navy DEI Summit with senior Navy and Marine Corps leaders.

“In order to maintain our strategic edge, the Navy and Marine Corps team must operationalize innovative and cohesive initiatives, rooted in DEI’s goals,” insisted Secretary Del Toro at the DEI summit, according to Sen. Schmitt’s office.

“The Navy’s DEI 101 online training facilitator guide focuses on the need to nurture a culture that ‘values diversity and emphasizes inclusion,’” despite the fact that a recent Department of Defense survey reported that “just 2% of the workforce lists racism as a problem,” noted Schmitt’s staff.

Schmitt’s office also noted that the Navy ceded the title of the world’s largest Navy to Communist China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) in 2020 and that currently, the Navy is retiring more ships than it is building, shrinking the Navy as the PLAN continues to grow.