The headline on Monday screamed “ArriveCan app costs $1 billion.”

A billion dollars, an amount that most of us cannot even conceive. And what do we have to show for it? A failed app that should never have been developed in the first place and has now been committed to the trash heap.

What has happened to government that we don’t seem to be able to produce any project on time or on budget?

At least with the Trans Mountain expansion, the extra $20 billion has netted us a pipeline that might be the most important industrial project in Canadian history. Now that hydrocarbons are flowing through that pipe, we can expect significant revenues and good fortune, not only for Alberta but for all of Canada.

Nonetheless, the final project was billions over budget and we can only wonder what will happen to the $13 billion or $14 billion that has been committed to new battery plants in Ontario. Another pipeline success story or another failed ArriveCan project?

Maybe in........

© Calgary Herald