Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon, committee members, and thank you for the opportunity to testify today as part of your study on ArriveCAN and to assist you in getting more clarity on the actions of Mr. David Yeo, now a former employee of the Department of National Defence.
In advance of today's session, the committee was provided with several documents that outline details and background on Mr. Yeo's employment with National Defence, which I hope you will find helpful in terms of establishing a common fact set as you proceed to study this matter.
It is important to note that persons hired to and within National Defence are expected to follow key policies, including the code of values and ethics and the Treasury Board directive on conflict of interest. Any employee who owns non-exempt assets and liabilities or is involved in any outside activities that might give rise to a real, potential or perceived conflict of interest in respect to their official duties must submit a confidential conflict of interest report within 60 days of signing their letter of offer. These expectations are laid out in every employee's letter of offer.
I would like to offer a short chronology of Mr. Yeo's time as an employee of National Defence.
Prior to his employment with the Department of National Defence, Mr. Yeo was a contractor with Dalian Enterprises and had been awarded several contracts by National Defence and other departments on behalf of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces.
On September 19, 2023, Mr. Yeo was hired as an indeterminate public service employee at National Defence as an IT-03. In his signed letter of offer, of which this committee has a copy, Mr. Yeo accepted the position with National Defence and all terms and conditions of employment, including the need to declare any conflict of interest within 60 days.
National Defence received Mr. Yeo's confidential conflict of interest report only on March 3, after information related to his business activities had come to the attention of the department. To be clear, this report was received after he had been suspended from his position with the department and 165 days after he began working as an indeterminate employee of National Defence.
While Mr. Yeo shared with this committee that he had taken steps to isolate himself from Dalian, even if this were true, this would not remove the requirement to disclose his business activities to his employer. Whether his failure to report his other activities to his employer was due to his poor understanding of the rules, poor judgment or poor ethics, we have evidence that Mr. Yeo carried on in his role with Dalian after joining the public service.
On February 28, when we learned of Mr. Yeo's involvement with Dalian and that he was also a member of our defence team, we immediately launched an internal investigation into the hiring process and placed him on suspension with pay that same day.
At that time, Mr. Yeo's probationary period was still in effect, and as part of our assessment on whether to terminate his employment, we had arranged to interview Mr. Yeo on March 6, 2024. Rather than proceed with that interview, Mr. Yeo elected to submit his unconditional resignation on March 5.
My priority is to ensure that investigations on several fronts continue to be thorough and are completed in a timely manner. This work includes an examination of the staffing process to hire Mr. Yeo and his activities as a contractor while working as an employee.
We have learned that Mr. Yeo continued with his role while an employee of the Department of National Defence and that through Dalian he had established other schemes with other companies. We are continuing our work to ensure that we have line of sight on any other companies with whom Mr. Yeo or Dalian is affiliated. As this work continues, we will continue to collaborate with other government departments to address issues surrounding contracting integrity in the public service.
We have also taken immediate action to address this issue. On March 14, the chief of the defence staff and I notified all internal leadership that PSPC had suspended the security clearances of certain companies, including Dalian, issued a stop work order for all related contracts and asked each internal organization to review any contracts they may have with those listed companies.
On March 15, I sent a letter to the Canadian Forces provost marshal to inform him of the current events related to Mr. Yeo and Dalian, and I will continue to keep him apprised of our work.
Last, we are implementing a new two-step process to ensure that conflicts of interest are identified both prior to hiring and upon issuance of an offer of employment.
I will conclude by thanking the members of this committee for their work on this issue, and I look forward to answering your questions.
