MPs have voted in favour of a ban on insider contracts after it was revealed a Department of National Defence (DND) employee was paid $7.9 million for a defence contract. The Trudeau Liberals opposed the motion, according to Blacklock’s Reporter. Liberal MP Brenda Shanahan called the motion a “stunt.” The motion was put forward after it was disclosed during the ongoing ArriveCan investigation that the federal government made a multi-million dollar deal with a defence contractor who was also a Department of National Defence (DND) employee. “It’s not something I personally think we are going to settle in a prescriptive motion of this kind,” said Shanahan.The Commons Public Accounts Committee on Wednesday voted 6 to 5 in favour of the motion to “prohibit any government employee from simultaneously working as an external contractor.”Currently Canada’s Values And Ethics Code For The Public Sector does not have a blanket ban on insider contracting, but “all possible steps to prevent and resolve any real, apparent or potential conflicts of interest” should be taken. “It should be disallowed, that you have somebody making money both as a government employee and an external contractor,” said Conservative MP Garnett Genuis, who proposed the ban. “It is important in light of the evidence we have heard to send a clear message to the government that this type of practice should no longer be allowed,” said Genuis. Auditor General Karen Hogan said there are “rules that already exist around public servants needing to disclose whether they have other employment income sources.”“That disclosure is meant to ensure there isn’t a conflict of interest,” said Hogan, adding that however, the problem is these “rules need to be enforced.”On February 28, it was disclosed David Yeo, a civilian DND employee, was also CEO of defence contractor Dalian Enterprises Inc. of Ottawa, which was paid $8.1 million in military contracts. Both Yeo and his company were suspended.“Clearly that’s a bit of a problem,” said Genuis. “It is either allowed or it is not allowed. In fairness to Mr. Yeo it was on his LinkedIn profile so it was kind of hiding in plain sight.”“We seem unable to call a spade a spade,” continued Genuis. “The department was selling to the company he worked for while he was also an employee of the department. How many investigators do you need to figure out that is a conflict of interest?”Comptroller General of Canada Roch Huppé told the Public Accounts Committee there was no official count on the number of federal contractors working on the federal payroll. “Government-wide, I don’t have that information,” testified Huppé.“This is absolutely incredible,” said Conservative MP Michael Barrett, who asked for a detailed accounting. Huppé repeated continuously that he would "have to see" and "will get back to the committee.".Canadian taxpayers spent $67 billion last year to pay for federal employees’ salaries and benefits, according to a February 22 Budget Office report called Supplementary Estimates (C). The payroll totals 428,000 workers. Federal agencies at the same time spent $16.7 billion a year on consultants, by official estimate.“It strains the bounds of public confidence when the government says, ‘Yes, we have hired many orders of magnitude more public servants than we ever had but we don’t have the capabilities to do the work we need to do, so we are going to outsource that work and we are going to outsource it to the tune of millions of dollars to people who already work for the federal government,’” said Barrett.Yeo, in testimony October 31 at the Commons Government Operations Committee, said, as the descendant of an Ojibway chief, he was instrumental in promoting indigenous contracting that benefited his own company. “In 2003 I was asked to participate in the creation of the Government of Canada’s policy for the procurement strategy for aboriginal business,” he said. Yeo never mentioned he was a federal employee the whole time.
