DND denies making statement that ArriveCan contractor and former employee was not in conflict of interest

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OTTAWA — The government is refuting a claim by the embattled head of an ArriveCan contractor that the Department of National Defence said he was not in a conflict of interest when he went to work for the department last fall.

Testifying at a heated House public accounts committee meeting Tuesday evening, David Yeo repeatedly told incredulous MPs that DND — where he worked from Sept. 19, 2023, until his resignation in early March amid the ArriveCan controversy — had stated publicly he was exonerated.

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“I understand that DND has now made a statement that there was no conflict of interest, but I have already made the choice and resigned from the public service after just 168 days,” he said at the beginning of his testimony.

He later specified he’d read the DND statement “in the papers.”

But Wednesday, DND spokesperson Kened Sadiku told National Post the department has made no such statement.

“The Department of National Defence (DND) has not made any specific statement related to Mr. Yeo and a conflict of interest,” Sadiku wrote in an email.

DND launched an investigation into Yeo, who is a founder of Dalian Enterprises Inc., which has done past work for the federal government, including on the ArriveCan app.

Sadiku’s statement also implied that the department has not yet made a final determination on whether Yeo’s role with Dalian put him in a conflict of interest when he joined the public service.

“Internal investigations on this matter are currently taking place,” Sadiku wrote.

At least two more times during the two-hour committee hearing, Yeo reiterated to MPs that DND had made a statement that “there was no conflict of interest” between his role at the public service and his company, Dalian.

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At one point, he told an MP that he had not received that information directly in a document from DND. But at the end of the hearing, he promised to provide the committee with a “Protected B” document allegedly containing that information.

Dalian did not immediately respond to questions about the confusion between Yeo’s statements at committee.

According to a recent scathing auditor general report on ArriveCan, Dalian was paid $7.9 million to help find IT workers for the application (Yeo said the amount was $4.9 million). Speaking to a committee on Oct. 31, 2023, Yeo said he was an executive on Dalian’s board of directors.

But it was only through media reports in February that MPs learned that Yeo had also been hired as a bureaucrat by DND in September 2023, raising questions about whether he had “double-dipped” as an undisclosed government contractor while employed by the public service.

The head of the government’s procurement department, Arianne Reza, told MPs earlier this month that Dalian’s “use of contracting, their employment, is egregious, is wrong, and it is a terrible situation.” She added that she contacted RCMP commissioner Mike Duheme when she found out about it.

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On Tuesday, Yeo argued that he was not in conflict of interest when he joined the public service in September because Dalian’s work on ArriveCan was long finished, and that he had begun steps to separate himself from the company.

But pushed by skeptical MPs of all parties, he admitted that he only signed a “Confidentiality, Non-Disclosure and No Access Agreement” with Dalian in mid-November.

He also admitted Dalian signed a contract with the government the exact day he joined the public service, but claimed his name only appeared on the contract because he had authorized an employee to sign on his behalf.

“Dalian signed a contract with DND after you became an employee again in the fall of (2023). This is obviously a conflict of interest. Why did you not feel you were in a conflict?” asked Liberal MP Jean Yip.

“Mr. Yeo, it has been extremely disappointing to see this level of misrepresentation,” said NDP MP Blake Desjarlais.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the date at which Dalian obtained a government contract in the fall of 2023.

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