:
Good afternoon. I call the meeting to order.
Welcome to meeting number 109 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts.
[English]
Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application, including today's witness.
All comments should be addressed through the chair.
[Translation]
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(g), the committee is resuming consideration of report 1 of the 2024 reports of the Auditor General of Canada, entitled “Report 1: ArriveCAN”, referred to the committee on Monday, February 12, 2024.
[English]
I would like to welcome our witness.
David Yeo, business owner, is joining us, as I've said, by video conference.
Mr. Yeo, I appreciate you making yourself available to us today. As discussed with the clerk, you have an opening statement of up to five minutes. Please go ahead.
:
I would like to start off by saying thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable members of the committee.
This land that we gather on today is the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Anishinabe Algonquin Nation and is now home to many other first nations, Métis and Inuit peoples.
I am a descendant of treaty-signing chief Robert Franklin, who is my great-grandfather and was past chief of Alderville First Nation. He was also a World War I veteran. I hold the Alderville First Nation community near and dear to my heart, as this is what forms my indigenous ancestry. I have family who live there and my father is also buried there next to my great-grandfather.
I, too, am an indigenous veteran. I served in the Canadian army for 14 years, from 1987 to 2001. Following this, I joined the Canadian Armed Forces reserves for another 10 years, from 2001 to 2011.
From September 1991 to February 1992, I was deployed to Cyprus as part of a UN mission with the 2nd Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment. I was a C9 machine gunner and driver along the front lines for six months.
From August to November 2010, I was deployed to Afghanistan as a contractor for the Department of National Defence to deliver a high-assurance security capability to Kandahar. We also went outside the wire to all the forward operating bases as well. I received a Command Commendation for my contribution to Task Force Kandahar.
I am a tactical security specialist, with expertise and certifications in high-assurance guarding technologies for the Canadian Armed Forces on both mobile platforms and specialty areas within the CAF.
In 2002, I founded Dalian Enterprises, which is a hardware and software cybersecurity company. The Government of Canada is Dalian's primary customer.
From 2002 until September 2023, I was not an employee of the Canadian government in any capacity, but a contractor providing IT professional security services through Dalian to the Department of National Defence.
Since 2002, Dalian has been regularly audited by Indigenous Services Canada to confirm compliance with all requirements of the procurement strategy for indigenous business. The company has passed every one of them, including one just recently in February 2024.
The PSIB is designed to help indigenous entrepreneurs like me start and grow a business by providing them access to procurement opportunities from the Government of Canada, either directly or through partnership. The PSIB has been successful in helping many indigenous-owned companies, including Dalian, to launch, grow and prosper.
In late September 2023, long after the completion of all work on ArriveCAN by Dalian, my professional relationship changed with the Department of National Defence. It changed from that of a consultant providing IT professional security services to a public service employee with the PIPSC union. That happened on September 19, 2023.
Due to this change, I took steps to address any conflict of interest concerns by entering into a confidentiality, non-disclosure and no-access agreement with Dalian, in which I agreed to refrain from participating in any Dalian proposals, projects, contracts, ventures or any other activity relating, directly or indirectly, to the Department of National Defence.
Since becoming a public service employee of National Defence, I've honoured that agreement. I have not been involved in any management or operations at Dalian and have not had access to Dalian confidential information of any kind.
I also made the appropriate conflict of interest filings with the Department of National Defence, resigned as a director and officer of Dalian and put my Dalian shares into a blind trust.
Unfortunately, no one from the media ever contacted Dalian or me before publishing reports late in February that suggested that I was a public service employee for decades. This resulted in an unfounded allegation at DND that I was in conflict of interest.
I understand that DND has now made a statement that there was no conflict of interest, but I had already made the choice and resigned from the public service after just 168 days, mostly due to this very difficult situation.
Even more disappointingly, no one from the federal government had ever contacted Dalian or me before undertaking the unfounded action of terminating all contracts with Dalian—hardware and software, and professional services—suspending security clearances, suspending Dalian and Coradix from continuing current work and competing for future opportunities with the Government of Canada, their primary customer for 22 years and 29 years respectively. This all happened within 48 hours, without due diligence or, in our concept, due process.
There has not been a single review, investigation, audit, report or study that has indicated Dalian or Coradix did anything wrong or illegal during ArriveCAN or the ArriveCAN project, or any other government project that we've been involved with.
Despite this and as a result of these unfounded terminations and suspensions, hundreds of employees and consultants are already out of work, or soon will be, from both companies. Neither company has done anything wrong or different for the past two and three decades of working with the federal government.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
:
Again, I'm buried two gates deep doing high-assurance security, trying to get it out to our war fighters, so getting right into this file was probably my first shot, back in October of last year, realistically, when we got the notification that we needed to go and talk to OGGO. From a timeline perspective, that's where I sit, from getting right into the file.
However, after gaining some knowledge on it, my understanding is that this goes back to 2019. We had a very good contract with the CBSA, a staff augmentation contract through PSPC, and we were doing some good things over there. The intent of the CBSA was actually to bring over 25% of its server applications from the CBSA on-prem to the AWS cloud. I think that's where it started in 2019.
Then, obviously, in the early 2020s, we had this whole COVID-outbreak thing happen and all of this craziness that happened with the ramp-up to getting ArriveCAN out the door. We were a small part of that; we were $4.9 million of that—$1.6 million per year and 20 part-time contracts. From that perspective, that's where I think it started.
When it finished was May 2023, from what I understand, and that was certainly well before I started with the public service.
:
As it sits right now, I have read the report. I am a certified contract and procurement specialist. That's what I did for my first 100-some-odd days with DND, and I've been around contracting forever, so I understand it completely.
What I can say out of the gate is that when I read through the Auditor General's report, I see that it's a good report, but it has vagaries and discrepancies in it. There is incorrect information in it. One of those incorrect areas is in our revenue stream because $7.9 million is not $4.9 million, and $4.9 million is not $7.9 million. There's a $3-million difference, and it's a 60% delta. From that concept right there, it's definitely a different aspect.
The other side of it is that, under “Findings”, there is a paragraph in there that says, “We found that 18% of invoices submitted by contractors that we tested did not [provide enough information] to determine whether expenses related to ArriveCAN or another information technology (IT) project.”
I have a good number of notes on this. I've gone through the entire thing. I have a lot of questions and things like that.
:
That's a good question, and I appreciate it.
Yes, we had some great years between 2008 and the run-up to Shared Services. We had some pretty lean years between 2013 and now, basically, from a hardware-software perspective, for sure. You know, my reasoning for getting back into the department was not based on money. I did 36 years with the department in varying capacities, whether regular forces, reserves or by contracting time plus my 168 days as a civil servant.
However, I got back in primarily to drive capability and high-assurance guarding solutions towards the war fighters who are in harm's way on the eastern flank of NATO. That was my job there. That was my claim and what I did at the department. Because I was there for so long, I understood it, and I was at the pinnacle of my technical abilities. It made sense for me to get in and drive technology down to the war fighters who need it the most.
That's primarily the reason, because I didn't do it for the money.
:
Yes, but 75% or 80% of it goes back to the consultant doing the work.
To answer your question, though, there is precedence for how you handle conflict of interest within a 60-day period or windows of that time frame, and I did put in a no-access, no-contact, no non-disclosure with Dalian within that 60-day period. I signed that on November 10, 2023, which was within the 60-day window.
After that, we were working with lawyers and getting our stuff together as far as forms and everything were concerned, getting my divestiture done and that sort of stuff during the time frame, and that has already been submitted to DND as well, but, due to the hype and everything else around this particular ArriveCAN app, I ended up having to put in my resignation. I was still on probation because I was only there for 168 days.
:
I have my own opinions—there's no question about that—but I'm not sure I can give them here.
It's really an irrational statement, to be honest with you. I've been operating for 22 years with the government, with top secret clearances and top secret facility clearances. We are not a bricks-and-mortar company. I have an office on the seventh floor of 222 Somerset Street downtown, and Coradix is down on the fifth floor.
I believe that Botler, for what they've brought to this situation, were hired for four or five deliverables. They got through two of them, and CBSA cancelled their task authorization for whatever reasons.
We got that cancellation of the task authorization. We passed it on to GC Strategies, and it floated down to Botler, and they've been not necessarily the kindest to Dalian since.
The costing of this is small with respect to the ArriveCan application project.
I want to pursue this line of misrepresentations, Mr. Yeo.
I know that Mr. Barrett and other members have asked you some questions that, in my opinion, really challenge your credibility.
Both you and the president of Coradix, Mr. Wood, testified on October 31, 2023. Both of you were quite emphatic that both businesses are regularly audited by Indigenous Services Canada with respect to the procurement strategy for indigenous business and that you both had been receiving clean audits.
However, that was a misrepresentation. It was a lie because Indigenous Services Canada said that all it does with respect to the set-asides that both of your companies operate under from time to time are pre-audits. It doesn't do post audits.
Do you agree with that assessment from Indigenous Services Canada?
:
I think it's a pretty big deal, sir, when you lead the committee to believe that you're running a clean business, that your indigenous set-asides are legitimate and are not operating under a phantom scheme. I know that you've been heavily criticized by a number of indigenous organizations that you're running this.
In fact, Botler even made the same allegation, so these are real concerns. I think you have to be honest with committee members, sir, because although you haven't been sworn to tell the truth, there is a presumption that you will tell the truth at committee. There are consequences when people do not tell the truth at committee.
Ultimately, we're going to find out by the end of this summer through Indigenous Services Canada, which is going to audit everything you have done and that Coradix has done for the last eight years, hopefully, if not longer, with respect to all the indigenous set-asides. I think Canadians deserve to know whether or not indigenous Canadians have benefited from this particular government operation. If they haven't, sir, then you'll have some questions to answer. I put that out to you, sir.
The other aspect that concerns me is your relationship with GC Strategies. Is it accurate, sir, that the one and only time you worked with GC Strategies was on the Botler task authorization?
:
Let's talk about Botler for a moment, please. You do know that Kristian Firth from GC Strategies testified that on not one occasion but upwards of five occasions he deliberately and intentionally doctored work experience for both of the Botler partners. He claimed it was a mistake.
Given my former background as a Crown attorney, I can tell you that all accused persons, all criminals, claim they made mistakes.
What in fact Mr. Firth did was to commit forgery, and it was a fraud on the government. What concerns me, sir, is that The Globe and Mail recently reported that both your company Dalian and Coradix received those doctored résumés, those fraudulent forged résumés, and you in fact forwarded those on to the government. That was recent news to me and perhaps to this committee, because we were all led to believe that it was Kristian Firth at GC Strategies who delivered those directly to the government.
It really begs the question: If you had only a limited amount of time with GC Strategies, why would you accept their material at face value? Now you're implicated as part of a joint venture, as a party to the offence of fraud and forgery. It's no wonder the RCMP is currently investigating your company and Coradix. Just because you haven't been contacted doesn't mean you are in the clear.
You talked about having quality management systems in place. Why didn't the quality management systems catch these fraudulent résumés?
:
Yes, for sure it's a good question.
First and foremost, we're as dismayed as the rest of the committee with the findings on GC Strategies. We were definitely not aware of what was going on below our subcontractor. The contract between us and GC Strategies is exactly that. We have no reference to Botler in this case and what information was being provided by GC Strategies to us.
There are aspects—I will be honest with you—of third party verification of employment and that sort of thing, but there's no industry standard that everybody uses in the entire professional services market.
What we've learned from this is that, even though we do our due diligence on security clearances and putting the CVs together, and the categories and the grids, and staffing those up to CBSA, we likely need to put third party verification of employment in place to allow us to smoke out this kind of stuff. We just weren't aware of it.
:
Let me just stop the clock, Mr. Genuis.
I will remind everyone, because this has come up time and time again, that the Auditor General's terms do not allow her to go into companies like Dalian, which is the one before us.
You sent her documents. From her perspective, they could have been irrelevant.
You will all recall that the Auditor General noted that she came up with these numbers based on what the Government of Canada provided her. That's just a point of clarification for the committee.
It doesn't change any of your questions, Mr. Genuis. I just wanted to put it out there that this is an ongoing debate about the scope of ArriveCAN, and I think it is an important one.
We don't know what the answer is. That's why these committee meetings are happening.
Mr. Genuis, you have the floor for four and a half minutes.