If you thought the stench of scandal would fade with Justin Trudeau’s exit, think again. The Liberal Party’s latest poster boy, Mark Carney, has waltzed into the prime minister’s office, promising a fresh start—yet he’s dragging the same rotting baggage of corruption behind him. The ArriveCan scandal, a $60 million boondoggle that epitomized Trudeau’s reign of waste and cronyism, isn’t just a ghost of the past; it’s a living, breathing disgrace that Carney’s cabinet is neck-deep in. Far from cleaning house, Carney has surrounded himself with the very architects of this mess, proving he’s not a savior but a continuation of the Liberals’ shameless grift.
Let’s peel back the layers of this festering sore. ArriveCan, billed as a simple COVID-19 screening app, ballooned from a modest $80,000 contract into a $60 million sinkhole of taxpayer cash. Auditors found invoices with no work attached, contracts handed to Liberal-friendly firms with zero oversight, and a cozy network of insiders pocketing millions while Canadians struggled through lockdowns. The Auditor General’s 2023 report was a gut punch: missing documentation, inflated costs, and a “glaring disregard” for accountability. GC Strategies, a two-man firm with no IT expertise, raked in $19 million alone—because why not, when Trudeau’s government was writing blank checks to pals?
Who was steering this ship of fools? Look no further than Carney’s cabinet, stocked with Trudeau’s old guard. Take Dominic LeBlanc, now Carney’s International Trade Minister but Trudeau’s Finance Minister during the ArriveCan fiasco’s peak. LeBlanc oversaw the purse strings while this app morphed into a cash cow for connected consultants. Did he raise a finger to stop it? Not a chance—his silence was deafening as the scandal unfolded. Then there’s Mélanie Joly, Carney’s Foreign Affairs Minister, who held various Trudeau-era posts and stayed mum while the Liberals funneled millions into this black hole. These aren’t bit players; they’re the heavyweights Carney hand-picked to “move faster” and “secure our economy,” as he bragged at his March 14, 2025, swearing-in. If this is his idea of competence, God help us.
The ties don’t stop there. François-Philippe Champagne, Carney’s new Finance Minister, was Trudeau’s Innovation Minister when ArriveCan’s costs started spiraling. His portfolio included digital infrastructure—yet he let this app become a poster child for waste, with subcontractors billing $1,000-a-day rates for work no one can verify. And don’t forget Chrystia Freeland, back as Carney’s Transport Minister after her dramatic Trudeau-era exit. As Deputy PM and Finance Minister, she was Trudeau’s right hand, rubber-stamping budgets that buried ArriveCan’s excesses. Her return under Carney isn’t a redemption arc; it’s a neon sign that the Liberal swamp remains undrained.
Carney wants you to believe he’s a crisis manager, a steady hand after Trudeau’s chaos. But this isn’t a new chapter—it’s the same book with a fancier cover. The ArriveCan scandal didn’t just happen under these people; it thrived because of them. The Public Accounts Committee’s 2024 hearings exposed a culture of “wilful blindness” in Trudeau’s cabinet, with ministers dodging questions and passing the buck. Now, those same faces sit around Carney’s table, smirking as if a leadership swap erases their fingerprints. Conservative MP Michael Barrett nailed it on X in February 2025: “Carney is surrounded by all of the same players. He’s just like Justin.” The evidence backs him up—same crew, same corruption.
And what about Carney himself? Before he was PM, he was Trudeau’s economic whisperer, chairing the Liberal Party’s Economic Growth Task Force in 2024. He hobnobbed with the elite while ArriveCan bled taxpayers dry—did he ever call it out? Not a peep. Instead, he coasted into power on promises of “action,” only to prop up the culprits. His cabinet isn’t lean and mean; it’s a who’s-who of Liberal scandal alumni. Posts on X from March 2025 scream the obvious: “Same corrupt MPs, means more of the same BS we saw over the last ten years,” as one user put it. Another blasted Carney for “bringing back all of Trudeau’s incompetent MPs” tied to “scandals like SNC-Lavalin”—a reminder that ArriveCan wasn’t a one-off.
The Liberals sued Canadians for noticing, too. When whistleblowers and journalists dug into ArriveCan, Trudeau’s government slapped them with gag orders and legal threats, all while Carney’s future cabinet sat idly by. Now, with Trump’s trade war looming, Carney’s pitching himself as Canada’s economic savior. But how can we trust a man who can’t—or won’t—cut loose the dead weight of Trudeau’s failures? His “smaller, experienced cabinet” isn’t a fix; it’s a reunion tour for the scandal-ridden.
ArriveCan isn’t ancient history—it’s a warning. Under Trudeau, the Liberals turned a pandemic tool into a slush fund. Under Carney, they’re banking on your short memory. Don’t let them. This isn’t about one app; it’s about a decade of rot that Carney’s too entwined to uproot. When the election comes—maybe as soon as April 28, 2025—remember the $60 million they torched while his team shrugged. Carney’s not change; he’s Trudeau 2.0, and his cabinet’s the proof.