Public servant's company received more than $200M in government contracts since 2015
An IT firm run by a defence department employee has been awarded millions of dollars in government con‐ tracts since 2015.
Dalian Enterprise has come in for scrutiny recently over its involvement in the development of the Arrive‐ Can app. The company had received $7.9 million for its work on the project as of last March, according to a recent report from Canada's auditor general.
The company has re‐ ceived more than $200 mil‐ lion in government contracts since 2015, according to a CBC News analysis of docu‐ ments tabled in the House of Commons in January.
The documents were filed in response to an order pa‐ per question from Conserva‐ tive MP Dan Muys. They list the contracts awarded to Dalian from each govern‐ ment department between November 2015 and Novem‐ ber 2023.
Natural Resources Canada and the RCMP have had con‐ tracts with Dalian but they were not listed in the docu‐ ments. CSIS and the Commu‐ nications Security Establish‐ ment didn't disclose if they've had contracts with the company, citing national security concerns.
Dalian's president and founder, David Yeo, is also an employee of the Department of National Defence (DND). CTV first reported the news and the department con‐ firmed it to CBC News.
"Due to the serious nature of the concerns raised, DND is launching an internal in‐ vestigation into the matter. The individual has been sus‐ pended while this investiga‐ tion is underway. We are in the process of suspending contracts with Dalian," a de‐ partment spokesperson told CBC News in an email.
CBC News has reached out to Yeo and Dalian for comment but hadn't received a response at the time of publication.
Government suspends Dalian contracts
The House documents sug‐ gest that Dalian's contracts with DND since 2015 total $1.9 million.
Defence Minister Bill Blair said Thursday during ques‐ tion period that all govern‐ ment contracts with Dalian have been suspended.
"We have suspended all contracts with Dalian, we have suspended the em‐ ployee and we have launched an investigation on how this person became an employee in the first place," he said.
DND would not say how long Yeo had been working for the department, but his LinkedIn page suggests he has been there since 1987.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said the gov‐ ernment should refer the matter to the police.
"This individual should be immediately fired. And there should be an immediate police investigation of his conduct and that of the com‐ pany with which he is associ‐ ated," he told reporters dur‐ ing a press conference Thurs‐ day.
While the documents only include contracts after No‐ vember 2015, the govern‐ ment's procurement website indicates that the company had received contracts some worth up to $2 million under the previous Conserv‐ ative government as well.
Indigenous Services au‐ diting Dalian contract‐ ing
Earlier this week, a govern‐ ment spokesperson told CBC News that Indigenous Ser‐ vices Canada began auditing Dalian's past work.
Dalian's website describes itself as "Aboriginally owned, veteran operated." In Octo‐ ber, Yeo told a House com‐ mittee studying ArriveCan that he is the great-grandson of Chief Robert Franklin of the Alderville First Nation in Ontario.
The government has pushed to ensure that a min‐ imum of 5 per cent of federal contracts are awarded to In‐ digenous businesses.
But another IT firm, Botler AI, raised concerns about Dalian's contracting processes during a separate October committee hearing.
Botler's chief executive, Ritika Dutt, told MPs that she fears Dalian's procurement policies are "another exam‐ ple of monetization and theft using the trauma of margin‐ alized communities."
Dutt claimed Dalian is used by other companies who want government busi‐ ness because they can "go af‐ ter Aboriginal contracts" by bidding with Yeo's firm as a joint operation.
Yeo denied Dutt's claims, telling MPs that they "don't ring true."
But after reviewing some of the evidence tabled at the committee, Liberal MP Jenica Atwin said "it's clear to me" that Dalian "appears to be the flow-through as an In‐ digenous-led organization."
"It is deeply disturbing to me that it was used in such a manner," Atwin said.
When questioned about his firm's work on the Arrive‐ Can app last year, Yeo strug‐
gled to tell MPs what exactly his company did on the file.
He conceded that his twoperson firm usually subcon‐ tracts out the "daily" work on federal projects to other businesses.
Dalian bids for tenders set aside for Indigenous busi‐ nesses, collects the govern‐ ment money and disperses funds to the relevant parties that do work on a particular project, he said.
Yeo ran as a candidate for the People's Party of Canada in the 2021 election. The party put out a statement Thursday denouncing Yeo's involvement with ArriveCan.
"During the candidate vet‐ ting process, he did not dis‐ close to us that his company had received a government contract to work on the Ar‐ riveCan project, as this would obviously have been grounds for rejecting his candidacy," the party said in a statement on X, formerly Twitter.