There is a systemic problem in the management of public IT projects in Canada and Quebec. This is not a secret. It is not an opinion. It is a finding documented by auditors general, public inquiries, and decades of data.
The numbers are hard to ignore. And yet, the same mistakes repeat themselves, project after project, government after government. At V.I.A. Solutions, we believe it is time to stop documenting the damage and start building concrete solutions.
ArriveCAN: From $80,000 to Some $59.5 Million
According to The Globe and Mail, the first version of the ArriveCAN app, launched in April 2020, cost $80,000. In February 2024, in her report, Canada's Auditor General Karen Hogan estimated the app's total cost at approximately $59.5 million, while finding that no budget or cost estimate had been developed.
But the most troubling aspect is not the amount itself. It is that the Auditor General herself could not determine the precise cost of the project, for lack of adequate financial records. She did not mince words:
“This is probably some of the worst financial record keeping that I've seen.”
She also emphasized in a CBC Radio interview that “an emergency is not an excuse to ignore the most basic requirements of maintaining complete and accurate records.”
According to the Auditor General's report, costs attributable to ArriveCAN for a firm that CBC News describes as a two-person business are estimated at $19.1 million as of March 31, 2023. The Auditor General also found that this firm had been involved in developing the requirements later included in the request for proposal for a competitive contract that it won.
SAAQclic: Half a Billion in Overruns
The SAAQclic project by Quebec's automobile insurance agency (SAAQ) was intended to modernize the agency's IT systems. Initial budget: $638 million over 10 years. According to the February 2025 report by Quebec's Auditor General (VGQ), the program's total cost will reach “a minimum of $1.1 billion” by March 2027 (our translation), an increase of nearly $500 million over the 2017 projections.
According to La Presse, the Gallant Commission report, tabled in February 2026, concluded that for “a large part” of the program the Crown corporation “lied to parliamentarians, ministers and their offices about the state of its progress” (our translation).
According to the VGQ, the February 2023 go-live caused significant problems: some transactions could not be completed, 18 interfaces were still not working, including those transmitting municipal court judgment notices, and police forces could no longer send accident reports to the SAAQ.
According to the February 2025 report by Quebec's Auditor General, the ERP vendor “that contributed significantly to documenting the SAAQ's requirements is part of the Alliance that went on to win the call for tenders” (our translation). The VGQ adds that this situation could have been avoided, for example through independent analyses comparing several solutions.
Phoenix: About $4.8 Billion and Hundreds of Thousands of Overpayments
According to CBC News, citing Public Services and Procurement Canada, the initial development of the federal Phoenix pay system cost $309 million; its total internal cost is now estimated at about $4.8 billion. Some 483,130 employees have received an overpayment since 2016 (a figure that includes administrative overpayments intentionally generated between 2017 and 2020), and the government says it cannot track underpayments.
This Is Not Anecdotal: It Is Structural
The Large Government of Canada IT Projects tracker catalogues 495 federal IT projects (2022 data). Among them: the Canada Revenue Agency's Quantum 2.0 project experienced a 407% cost increase (from $14.2M to $71.9M), and the Offender Management System was 8.62 years behind schedule.
The Root Causes
Analyzing these failures, four recurring structural flaws emerge, and every one of them was preventable:
- Inadequate initial requirements scoping: requirements are vaguely or ambiguously defined, with no independent validation before the RFP. Acceptance criteria are unclear, contractual risks go unidentified, and the project's foundations are fragile from the start. ArriveCAN and SAAQclic illustrate what happens when no one rigorously challenges a project's foundations before signing.
- No real-time visibility on actual progress: progress reports are produced by the same teams delivering the project. Without an independent, real-time source of information on deliverable status, deviations accumulate silently until they become crises. By the time decision-makers discover reality, it is already too late.
- Undetected scope creep: amendments are added without rigorous assessment of their cumulative impact on budget and schedule. No one systematically verifies that each deliverable remains compliant with the original contractual commitments. The initial scope becomes unrecognizable.
- Non-existent decision traceability: when auditors general review these projects, they sometimes find incomplete records and undocumented decisions, as in the case of ArriveCAN, and accountability becomes diluted. It is impossible to link a decision to its actual financial impact. Accountability becomes a theoretical exercise.
V.I.A.'s Response: Technology and Independence
At V.I.A. Solutions, we do not settle for diagnosing the problem. We address it with two complementary offerings: the Transparence platform and the independent technology audit.
The Transparence Platform
Each structural flaw identified above calls for a targeted response. Transparence, our AI-supported governance and verification platform, is designed to address them:
- Needs scoping: a custom AI highlights vague areas and suggests measurable requirements. The project's foundations are solid before the RFP is even drafted.
- Clear, measurable commitments: bids are compared with one another and with best practices, then commitments become clear, measurable clauses that can be consulted in real time.
- Deliverable validation: each deliverable is checked, then confirmed by a double human validation before payment. Gaps are caught before any money is paid out.
- Real-time tracking and a proven record: dashboards and the audit file are built as the project goes, complementing the reports produced by delivery teams. Every action leaves a dated, ordered record, proven with a cryptographic signature, which makes verification easier.
The Independent Technology Audit
Technology alone is not enough. With our independent technology audit, a third party that sells no solution and is tied to no vendor takes an expert look at the project. Its only interest is yours.
- Before signing: an independent review of the proposed architecture, the selected technologies and how well they fit your long-term objectives.
- At every milestone: each deliverable is compared with what was promised, and gaps are flagged and corrected while there is still time to act.
- In technical discussions: a specialist represents you with the vendor and helps you understand what is at stake so you can make the right decisions.
It Is Time to Act
The billions wasted on public IT projects are not inevitable. These are public funds (taxpayer money) that could be invested in healthcare, education, or infrastructure.
Society deserves better. Citizens deserve to know that every dollar invested in digital transformation corresponds to a concrete and verifiable result.
At V.I.A. Solutions, that is exactly what we make possible. A platform that equips rigor. An independent perspective in service of objectivity.
It is time to take back control.
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