Also, ArriveCan was frequently mentioned by many in the protests around covid.
From my end: I dislike near-mandatory apps by governments, but I felt like Covid was an exceptional time and at least it is non-mandatory now at the boarder.
ArriveCAN was quite stupid, but at least it was fairly simple and the mobile app was just a convenient wrapper around the web app. It could have been so much worse.
Honestly, as a former government contractor at a couple different places, this is pretty good bang for the buck. The planning meetings alone were probably $12m.
It is broadly speaking not legal. Many lawsuits spiralled out of this. In the broadest settlement, workers were entitled to $2,500 in general damages plus any out-of-pocket costs & losses incurred due to this clusterfuck including "a compensation process for severe impacts such as ruined credit ratings, accumulated interest on loans or credit cards, loss of security clearance due to bankruptcy, mental anguish and trauma, or loss of savings from cashing in investments such as RRSPs to pay debts". There's still other lawsuits ongoing.
From my end: I dislike near-mandatory apps by governments, but I felt like Covid was an exceptional time and at least it is non-mandatory now at the boarder.