The pandemic agency's unscientific and superstitious fears of coronavirus contagion on paper products prompted the creation of the scandal-plagued travel surveillance app ArriveCan.

DOCUMENTS @GovCanHealth claim feds launched $60M #ArriveCan because paper Customs forms transmitted Covid. But gov't scientists at the time said it was impossible to transmit Covid thru paperwork.  https://t.co/bSeOhb1D96 #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/jPUU29d36S

— Blacklock's Reporter (@mindingottawa) June 24, 2024

The flawed ArriveCan application, dubbed ArriveScam by critics, was a $60 million mandatory travel app which tracked the vaccination status of travellers entering the country and was developed by GC strategies, a company run by Christian Firth.

Kristian Firth of the ArriveScam contractor GS Strategies tells the House of Commons he has not been asked by the Liberals to repay the millions he made with his flawed surveillance app. pic.twitter.com/hG2Ef7tShq

— Sheila Gunn Reid (@SheilaGunnReid) April 17, 2024

ArriveScam is now the subject of multiple police investigations into deleted records, wrongfully awarded and inflated contracts, contracts with no work for payment, and internal corruption at the Canada Border Services Agency.

CPC's Larry Brock confirms with the RCMP there are "many" open investigations into the corrupt awarding of contracts by the Trudeau government.

Assistant Commissioner Mark Flynn indicates there are "more than 6" open criminal investigations, which include Trudeau government… pic.twitter.com/gBUaL9dzlS

— Sheila Gunn Reid (@SheilaGunnReid) June 19, 2024

Documents obtained by Blacklock's Reporter reveal the hysteria driven by a COVID-19 conspiracy theory about the virus living on paper paved the way for the waste, corruption and abuses of ArriveScam.

"If they're polymer notes, you can disinfect them. If they're paper notes, iron them."#Covid19 may stay for weeks on banknotes and touchscreens, according to a new report from @CSIRO. More @business: https://t.co/DrhYvA1z4v pic.twitter.com/HLqA6XXAOH

— Bloomberg Originals (@bbgoriginals) October 13, 2020

According to Blacklock's:

The Public Health Agency, in an in-house memo, says it introduced the $59.5 million ArriveCan app because it feared ordinary Customs forms were infected with Covid.

“Early in the pandemic, before the transmission vectors of Covid were well understood, there was suspicion the virus could ‘live’ on and be transmitted via the paper forms,” said the memo, Benefits Of ArriveCan.

But Public Health Agency doctors never claimed COVID-19 was transmissible by paper. As the story continues:

“I am not quite sure what the risk would be,” Dr. Howard Njoo, deputy chief public health officer, told reporters March 23, 2020. “The risk is not really out there. There should be no chance of interaction.”

Managers have never identified the source of their paper germ theory. Jonathan Moor, a Canada Border Services Agency vice-president, testified on April 3 at the Commons public accounts committee that an unidentified expert told managers that paper forms were unsafe.

“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,” he said.

All of this would be hilarious — if the hysteria didn't cost Canadians $60 million and counting.