Public Accounts Committee on March 21st, 2024

[Isabelle Desmartis, Assistant Deputy Minister, Human Resources – Civilian, Department of National Defence]

The only thing I would add is that we are also looking at the hiring manager and other processes to see if there are other systemic problems there. You were talking about other Mr. Yeos; that's what we're doing internally, and the Public Service Commission will be looking exactly at what Deputy Matthews said.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

I wonder if you could expand on that a little bit, because you're saying that you're looking at the people who were around him. It seems hard to believe that they weren't aware of other activities. I don't want to get into specifics and so on, but you did tell us that you felt the need to write to the provost marshal. Are there multiple investigations going on?

[Bill Matthews]

We're looking into the staffing process, as we mentioned, through the Public Service Commission. For the contracts that were through Dalian, we also want to make sure that we received the services that were contracted for, and to date the answer is yes, we did receive those services.

We will also look at hiring practices within that broader unit to make sure that there is nothing untoward there.

I will say that I spoke to the major and the colonel whom Mr. Yeo worked for. They knew he was a contractor and they were absolutely unaware of his broader business dealings. I asked them if it ever came up, even once he started work, through conversations about what he had done on the weekend or if it ever came up that he ran a consulting company. It never came up, and they were in frequent contact with him.

These sorts of things were never flagged for the manager, because if they had been flagged, the expectation would be that the manager would look into whether a conflict of interest was declared. I spoke to them, and they said that it never came up at all that he had these other activities.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Okay, and you explained the work he was doing. He was conducting the work himself. I know that it's not unusual for an IT professional to hire themselves out as a consultant, but is that so not unusual that it just would not be questioned? They're a consultant; they're incorporated. Somebody is billing Dalian.

[Bill Matthews]

You will see cases in the IT informatics world in which someone incorporates themselves and they contract out themselves, as well as other people, as a resource, effectively doing both. They might be the resource or it might be another person they have subcontracted.

In the case of Dalian, they were also authorized resellers of certain software tools. A few of the contracts with Dalian were cases in which we were purchasing software licences through Dalian. There weren't just human services; there were some software licences as well.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Mr. Yeo would have been known as Dalian. Am I correct? He was hired. He was working, doing that technical work himself. He would have been billed as Dalian.

[Bill Matthews]

I assume he was billed as Dalian. That would make good sense.

I'll turn to Troy in a second.

The major and the colonel who supervised him did not know that he had other activity outside of the work he was doing for National Defence on a day-to-day basis.

Troy, do you have anything else?

[Troy Crosby, Assistant Deputy Minister, Materiel Group, Department of National Defence]

Mr. Chair, as the deputy said, he was billing as Dalian, through Dalian.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you. That is time, Ms. Shanahan.

Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné, you have the floor for two and half minutes.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

There's a very real contradiction in what you just said, Mr. Matthews. If the team Mr. Yeo worked with, his supervisor and the people who hired him, had done a simple basic check on Google, they would have seen that Dalian is a big company, that Mr. Yeo was billing fraudulently and that he had contracts with many other companies.

How can it be that the Department of National Defence in a G7 country does not do basic security checks on the staff it hires?

[Bill Matthews]

Thank you for the question.

That is the reason why we will verify hiring processes to validate the information received. We will specifically make sure that the reference checks provided are done correctly.

I don't think you want to be in a world where we're effectively spying on our employees—

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

I'm sorry, but you're exaggerating.

[Bill Matthews]

I did not say that. I know.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Fine, but I would like you to answer my question more specifically. If you are extrapolating, you are not answering.

Since I did not get an answer to my first question, I will move on to the next.

How is it that an employee at the Department of National Defence can testify before Parliament while they are officially a full-time employee, without their supervisor, their team, or anyone else noticing that they are testifying on behalf of a company that is not the Department of National Defence?

Mr. Yeo appeared on October 31, 2023. He had been an official employee at the Department of National Defence for over a month. However, he never mentioned this to the department. No one in the entire department realized that one of their employees was testifying before the Standing Committee for Government Operations and Estimates.

What can you tell us on this matter?

[Bill Matthews]

In fact, it was after La Presse published an article on Mr. Yeo and the bank accounts he had in other countries that someone recognized his name.

The first assumption was that it was probably a duplicate name. Within five minutes we checked, and we realized that this was in fact the same person we had in our organization. I do want to—

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

At what point did you realize, Mr. Matthews, that one of your employees had bank accounts in tax havens?

[Bill Matthews]

On February 28.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Okay.

You nonetheless realized it four months after his appearance at Parliament before the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. The day he came here, for several hours—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné, ask your question, please.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

The day he appeared here, before the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, for several hours, no one noticed this employee was not at his workplace during work hours.

Is that right?

[Bill Matthews]

That is the truth, no one noticed.

I would like to refer members to the organizational structure. He is very far down in the organizational structure. It's a big place. Obviously the people who managed him on a day-to-day basis were not watching the parliamentary committee.

Troy, do you want add something?

[Troy Crosby]

I would add that it was a good question. We asked the same question: How could we have missed this? Of course, at the level where we're operating, individuals aren't watching parliamentary committees—forgive me—and they weren't aware of it. The committee appearance was actually made outside of Mr. Yeo's normal work hours, and it wasn't in his work calendar.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

The next speaker is Mr. Desjarlais.

Mr. Desjarlais, you have the floor for two and a half minutes. Go ahead, please.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to turn to a particular incident that already exists in your ministry that to me presents a potential of risks existing to other ministries. I believe that the recommendations made by the Auditor General would actually assist your ministry as well.

I want to turn to the case study of Calian. Are you aware of the company known as Calian?

[Bill Matthews]

I am, Mr. Chair.