Public Accounts Committee on March 21st, 2024

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Then perhaps we'll just pass on it.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

Mr. Nater, you have the floor for five minutes.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses from the Department of National Defence.

I want to follow up on a few more detail-oriented questions just to clarify in my mind a few of the issues.

It was mentioned that Mr. Yeo applied to a general pool external to the Department of National Defence. In the timeline that your department provided, it's not clear to me when he was accepted into that pool. Could you clarify what date that would have been?

[Bill Matthews]

I will have to get back to you with the exact date in terms of when the pool was created, unless my colleague Madame Desmartis knows. I do know when he started his employment with National Defence, which was in September, so obviously it was before that. However, if we don't have it handy, we'll come back to you with that answer.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

I'd appreciate that, if it's not handy.

[Isabelle Desmartis]

The application for the pool was received in 2021-22. I don't have the exact date; obviously, he was selected afterward. There was a delay of a year between the two.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

His contract number three was extended on multiple occasions until September 18, 2023, which was the same day that he began his employment.

I just want to confirm that he effectively was continuing on in the same position with the same manager. Is that correct?

[Bill Matthews]

He transitioned from doing the work as a contractor to basically doing exactly the same work, Mr. Chair, as an employee.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

The hiring manager would have reached into the pool and pulled out his name, effectively knowing.... Therefore, it's likely—and we can't infer what his mind was—that he applied to the pool with the understanding that his current manager would pull his name out of it to put him into the same position, if that would be an inference in this case.

[Bill Matthews]

My understanding, Mr. Chair, is yes. In fact, the manager and Mr. Yeo had conversations encouraging him to apply because of the goal of turning that skill set from a contracted resource into an employee. This skill set is not easily found, so there were not many.... I believe there was actually no one else in the pool who actually had the skill set in terms of the network type of work that Mr. Yeo did. He was the only one in the pool who actually fitted the bill.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

That certainly is a question we can follow up on in terms of how these pools are sometimes created, but that's for another day. I may come back to this if I have time, but I want to switch topics.

You mentioned in response to Ms. Bradford—and I may not have caught the number correctly—either 15 or 50 employees of DND who have external employment. Was it 15 or 50?

[Bill Matthews]

It's five-zero.

Mr. Chairman, my recollection is that is a mix of civilian and military members. I can confirm that 50 is the right number; I'm just not clear if it's civilian and military or just civilian. Just give me one second.

It's both. There are 50 members, civilian and military.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Of those, are you aware of any who have contracts or work within the Government of Canada?

[Bill Matthews]

That is the group of 50 that actually has outside work that is possibly related to the Government of Canada, so in most cases, yes.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Could we have a list of those businesses and the types of contracts they have with the government?

[Bill Matthews]

I will endeavour to provide the committee with information on the 50. We are still doing some validation. I also want to make sure I don't violate privacy. I will certainly come back to the committee with some information on the 50.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

I appreciate that.

The Treasury Board Secretariat has informed us they had 82 employees who had dual employment, two of whom had contracts with other government departments.

Would you be able to confirm, deny or provide clarity on whether any of those Treasury Board Secretariat employees are also contractors with the Department of National Defence?

[Bill Matthews]

Mr. Chair, I cannot validate the employees of other departments and whether they have contracts with National Defence. I can endeavour to connect with my colleagues at Treasury Board Secretariat and see if any of their disclosures make that link for us. I'll do my best on that one, but I'm not sure.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

To that end, beyond simply Treasury Board Secretariat, are you aware of any other employees from other departments who are also contractors within the Department of National Defence?

[Bill Matthews]

I'm not aware, Mr. Chair, but I would assume they exist. At the Department of National Defence we have employees who are doing contract work for other departments. I assume the inverse is true as well.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

I would appreciate any clarity you can provide down the road.

I have one final quick question.

Your department states that the Government of Canada has implemented a “mandatory target” to have at least “5% of the total value of contracts...awarded to indigenous businesses”. Within the Department of National Defence, would your 5% include contracts awarded to Dalian, regardless of who their subcontractors would have been?

[Bill Matthews]

It would have included any awards to businesses that are on the business directory maintained by ISC, so I would assume Dalian would have been counted towards that as defence, as Mr. Crosby has confirmed with the shake of his head.

When National Defence looks at its indigenous targets from a procurement perspective, we have some very large-dollar contracts around northern radar maintenance. That's the vast majority of our contract work there, but Dalian would be included in that as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

We are turning now to Ms. Yip. You have the floor for five minutes.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for coming.

In answering one of my colleague's questions, Mr. Matthews, you mentioned it would not be prohibited to be both an employee and a contractor for DND. Why is that?

[Bill Matthews]

I think it depends on the nature of the work. Let's just use a simple example outside of DND first, and then we'll come to a DND example.

If you had someone who was employed as a full-time translator for the Government of Canada and on the weekends they wanted to take on contract work as a translator for other departments, that is allowable as long as it's disclosed.

If we turn to National Defence, we have employees who have highly sought-after skill sets in the world of IT and security. They may have opportunities to offer that expertise to other departments or maybe to a contractor who is dealing with another department. If they want to do that on the weekend, that's fine.

However, it gets a little more complicated when the contract work is with National Defence. If it has nothing to do with their day job, if they're doing it after hours and if they disclose it, that is allowable under the current rules.