According to the NDP, THIS is why ArriveCan cost too much...

[admined]

According to this report, ArriveCan wasted millions of dollars of taxpayers' money on an overpriced and useless product because of “decades of underfunding”.

Quote

NDP MP Blake Desjarlais said the ArriveCAN debacle is the result of “decades of underfunding” to the public service which has left it needing to subcontract some of the work to private companies.

So I guess the secret of fighting corruption and waste is to throw away so much money that no one will even want to steal it. 

Gotcha.

[herbie]

Reason was more like the usual Lib/Tory/almost all big business "don't tell the coder exactly what you want and who the users are going to be - just farm it out to the cheapest".

I'm sure the Tories would've picked someone off a Facebook ad or a phishing email.

To be fair and unbiased we'd get ArriveCan 1.0 about 2040 under the NDP as they'd grab the civil servant with the most seniority and we'd have to wait until they completed their degree. Probably a blind person of colour in a wheelchair with ESL. And two refugee trannies to do the French website translations. Right?

[SpankyMcFarland]

It sounds like a major scandal, a really real one and a god awful look for Trudeau. The only smidgin of mitigation I can see is that the app was set up more hurriedly than usual under the pressure of the pandemic. Why on earth would they engage, and massively compensate, a two person firm of comical amateurishness to hand out the contracts instead of doing it themselves? Who are these characters and what’s their connection to the Liberal Party? What we have to wonder is how many more ArriveCans there are in the procurement system that we don’t know about yet. And why is JT so quiet? The ship of state seems rudderless at the moment. 

Edited February 13, 2024 by SpankyMcFarland

[Moonbox]

12 hours ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

It sounds like a major scandal, a really real one and a god awful look for Trudeau. The only smidgin of mitigation I can see is that the app was set up more hurriedly than usual under the pressure of the pandemic. Why on earth would they engage, and massively compensate, a two person firm of comical amateurishness to hand out the contracts instead of doing it themselves? Who are these characters and what’s their connection to the Liberal Party? What we have to wonder is how many more ArriveCans there are in the procurement system that we don’t know about yet. And why is JT so quiet? The ship of state seems rudderless at the moment. 

The problem the government has (and especially with anything advanced or tech-related), is that high-performers and those with the most expertise have no interest in working for the bureaucratic public service, even if the benefits are wonderful. As a result, the public service is chronically short of actual expertise and know-how. 

For something like ArriveCan, the people on-staff in the public service are so woefully inadequate to the task that they wouldn't even know where to start on something of that scale, or where to even find the people who would, nevermind managing and directing them. 

This story begins and ends with a bloated, ineffective bureaucracy being bureaucratic and wasting our money, and our time.  

 

[SpankyMcFarland]

1 hour ago, Moonbox said:

For something like ArriveCan, the people on-staff in the public service are so woefully inadequate to the task that they wouldn't even know where to start on something of that scale, or where to even find the people who would, nevermind managing and directing them. 

You’d think they’d be aware of the optics, though, and award the contract to a larger outfit that might do some of the work itself. They seem to have been in talks with these guys already. Could they not have hired them merely to find a larger company or companies that wasn’t theirs which could do the work? 

Edited February 13, 2024 by SpankyMcFarland

[Moonbox]

3 minutes ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

You’d think they’d be aware of the optics, though, and require the company getting the contract to do most of the work itself. Or at least take on one with staff and offices! 

You'd think, but the bureaucracy is often as nepotistic as it is incompetent and unaccountable.  

[blackbird]

With the disaster that unfolded in airports and clearing arriving passengers during the pandemic, it sounds like he government panicked and just threw away tens of millions of dollars to some individuals or small companies that saw an opportunity to really scam the taxpayers.

[eyeball]

2 hours ago, Moonbox said:

The problem the government has (and especially with anything advanced or tech-related), is that high-performers and those with the most expertise have no interest in working for the bureaucratic public service, even if the benefits are wonderful. As a result, the public service is chronically short of actual expertise and know-how. 

Sounds like we need to pay public servants more than they can make in the private sector if we expect to attract the talent we need.

Does that logic rankle the way it does when it's applied the other way?

[admined]

1 minute ago, eyeball said:

Sounds like we need to pay public servants more than they can make in the private sector if we expect to attract the talent we need.

Does that logic rankle the way it does when it's applied the other way?

Well this particular issue had nothing to do with talent and everything to do with corruption. Even a mediocre - but loyal - civil servant will know that public funds aren't meant to be distributed freely among friends.

[CdnFox]

15 hours ago, herbie said:

Reason was more like the usual Lib/Tory/almost all big business "don't tell the coder exactly what you want and who the users are going to be - just farm it out to the cheapest".

I'm sure the Tories would've picked someone off a Facebook ad or a phishing email.

To be fair and unbiased we'd get ArriveCan 1.0 about 2040 under the NDP as they'd grab the civil servant with the most seniority and we'd have to wait until they completed their degree. Probably a blind person of colour in a wheelchair with ESL. And two refugee trannies to do the French website translations. Right?

Right - the liberals were the ones who orderd it and administrated it's development, the ndp voted for it and propped the gov't up every step of the way despite concerns being raised by the conservatives, So the guilty party here MUST be....

the Conservatives.  Of course.  Probably harper. When he wasn't eating babies.

Sigh. This is why we can't have nice things.

[eyeball]

11 minutes ago, admined said:

Well this particular issue had nothing to do with talent and everything to do with corruption. Even a mediocre - but loyal - civil servant will know that public funds aren't meant to be distributed freely among friends.

The problem is we really suck at doing anything about corruption. So we should try applying the same logic to attracting honest talent as we do to attract competent talent - make compensation for honesty so good that it out competes corruption.

[Moonbox]

14 minutes ago, eyeball said:

Sounds like we need to pay public servants more than they can make in the private sector if we expect to attract the talent we need.

No, because they're not interested in a unionized public sector environment where their talents and advancements are stunted by seniority, and office/diversity politics.   

14 minutes ago, eyeball said:

Does that logic rankle the way it does when it's applied the other way?

No, because it's poor logic.  🙃

The pay floor for our public servants is stupidly high, (back in Kevin Paige's day it was an average of around $113,000/y with benefits).  They don't care about the job security, benefits and pay floor.  They can do better on their own, and thus we need to hire them as contractors.  Meanwhile, we're left overpaying the folk who wouldn't cut it elsewhere.  

[admined]

29 minutes ago, eyeball said:

The problem is we really suck at doing anything about corruption. So we should try applying the same logic to attracting honest talent as we do to attract competent talent - make compensation for honesty so good that it out competes corruption.

I don't believe that corruption is a result of poverty. It's much more the result of bad character. So I don't think paying people more will lead to a more honest civil service. Of course, that doesn't mean I feel they should be paid less either.

[eyeball]

5 hours ago, Moonbox said:

They can do better on their own, and thus we need to hire them as contractors.

So privatize the government?  Maybe...I've had an interest in exploring technocracy as a form of governance so perhaps privatization is a possible path towards that.

There'll still be the issue of transparency and public trust. Unless these are just becoming unrealistic anachronisms like democracy or a 4th estate.

Edited February 14, 2024 by eyeball

[herbie]

1 hour ago, CdnFox said:

the ndp voted for it and propped the gov't

And that last part of my post was devoted to people as politically ignorant as you who believe it's truth and that Parliament votes on apps and Ministry decisions, and the PM decides if your toast will burn.

[CdnFox]

19 minutes ago, herbie said:

And that last part of my post was devoted to people as politically ignorant as you who believe it's truth and that Parliament votes on apps and Ministry decisions, and the PM decides if your toast will burn.

Do they vote on committees?

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-liberal-bloc-and-ndp-mps-suspend-arrivecan-and-misconduct-hearings/

The ndp could have objected and stopped the waste early on if they wanted to. They hold the balance of power.

the ndp then tried to cover up the liberals corruption and doling out money to friends. 

The ndp is knee deep in this crap. 

The only ignorant one here is you. Oh but - you're an ndp supporter.   Well. That explains your desire to lie about it.

[Moonbox]

1 hour ago, eyeball said:

So privatize the government?  Maybe...I've had an interest in exploring technocracy as a form of governance so perhaps privatization is a possible path towards that.

Lol no.  This just highlights how dysfunctional the current system is.  We no only have an entrenched and overpaid public bureaucracy that provides little of value to begin with, but they're so useless that we have to outsource what they should be doing but can't.  

1 hour ago, eyeball said:

There'll still be the issue of transparency and public trust. Unless these are just becoming unrealistic anachronisms like democracy or a 5th estate too.

No doubt.  I'm not advocating for using contractors.  I'm advocating for some accountability and expectations from our fat bureaucracy.