Evidence of meeting #109 for Public Accounts in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was dalian.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:30 p.m.
Business Owner, Dalian Enterprises Inc.
I probably should have.
I need to answer your question. You asked me a question and I'm trying to answer.
The department has deemed—
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Were you not in a conflict of interest, being on the board of directors of Dalian at the same time as you were an employee of a department that was giving contracts to a company that you, according to your testimony before Parliament, were on the board of directors of?
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
I will allow for an answer, please.
Mr. Genuis, your time has expired.
You have the floor, Mr. Yeo.
4:30 p.m.
Business Owner, Dalian Enterprises Inc.
My understanding is that DND has made a statement that there was no conflict of interest.
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
I'll turn now to Ms. Bradford.
You have the floor for five minutes.
March 19th, 2024 / 4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Yeo, getting back to your aborted political career when you were a candidate for the PPC, which is a party that was against vaccine mandates, do you not see any hypocrisy in working on an ArriveCAN app that was designed to track people's vaccine records when you actually didn't believe in the vaccine mandates in the first place and were running for a party that actually took that position?
4:30 p.m.
Business Owner, Dalian Enterprises Inc.
There's definitely a “why”, as to why I was trying to become a member of Parliament, much like you folks around the table today. I wish somebody would ask me about that at some point during this time period because it's a much different answer than you'd think.
Second of all, when it comes to vaccine mandates, I'm very two-gates deep at DND and then on nights and weekends I'm doing work with the PPC for the election. From my side of it, I had no visibility into a low-level contract that was with staff augmentation—a contract with CBSA—and the work that was going on for ArriveCAN.
We were doing much more work than just ArriveCAN, so I had no visibility at the time.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
I just want you to go back again because I'm a bit confused.
I think a previous answer was that Dalian, and you personally, did no actual work on the ArriveCAN app. You subcontracted it all.
Is that correct that you didn't actually do any actual work on that?
4:30 p.m.
Business Owner, Dalian Enterprises Inc.
We're prime contractors on a staff augmentation contract that staffs subject matter experts into CBSA to actually perform the work—to code the application, do project management, security and everything else.
Saying that we don't do any work is a little not true. At the end of the day, we do subcontract out that work to subject matter experts who do eventually make their way into CBSA to actually perform the work.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
You got an 18.2% commission rate on the $4.9 million ArriveCAN contract.
Is that correct?
That's about $890,000 in commission.
4:35 p.m.
Business Owner, Dalian Enterprises Inc.
That's what my staff has told me. It was 18.2%.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
How much was your overhead and how much was the remaining profit?
4:35 p.m.
Business Owner, Dalian Enterprises Inc.
I'd have to go and ask our CFO to try to figure that out, but my office in 222 Somerset has employees, commissions and everything else like that.
I'm not sure what the exact number is to be honest with you.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
But most of the work is subcontracted out to others.
Is that correct?
4:35 p.m.
Business Owner, Dalian Enterprises Inc.
Absolutely.
In some cases, it's our own consulting bench that goes out to do this and in some cases we did some work with GC Strategies.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
If you're the majority shareholder in the company, what percentage of the net profit do you get?
4:35 p.m.
Business Owner, Dalian Enterprises Inc.
Again, that's a question of how much expenses are within the company, but in a normal sharehold perspective, if you're a majority shareholder and you have minority shareholders, at the end of the year everybody's T5ed out as far as dividends are concerned if we have a profit.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
Going back to when you formed your company in 2001 or 2002, basically Dalian was formed to go after indigenous contracts.
4:35 p.m.
Business Owner, Dalian Enterprises Inc.
Yes, absolutely, because of my background and heritage.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
Right.
If you subcontract everything else out to other companies, they don't have to be indigenous service providers.
4:35 p.m.
Business Owner, Dalian Enterprises Inc.
No, not necessarily.
I helped Allen Frost, with a number of other companies, start the PSAB. He had already got it going but we had helped him formulate some of the policies back then.
It was basically for entrepreneurs who needed to have access to government contracts, so from that perspective it was all about having ownership in the company and having the ability to grow the company through government contracts and then potentially either start another company or potentially hire employees and keep growing your own business.
It's a very good policy.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
In your testimony, Mr. Yeo, you mentioned that you provided your signature to your staff to use when needed.
Do you think that was appropriate under the circumstances, looking back on it?