Auditor general's office fires 2 staff members for earning money from government contracts

The auditor general's office has fired two of its employ‐ ees after learning they were earning money from Government of Canada contracts on the side.

"The employees did not disclose this information to their managers. None of the employees involved were au‐ ditors," said a statement from the Office of the Audi‐ tor General (OAG).

"In two cases, an investi‐ gation was conducted, and the employees no longer work for the OAG."

The OAG confirmed that a third employee is also being investigated in relation to outside work.

As first reported by the National Post, the investiga‐ tions led the OAG to revoke the employees' security clearances and then termi‐ nate their employment.

Both cases were first re‐ ferred to the RCMP in early January 2024. On the advice of the Mounties, the OAG re‐ ferred them to the Ottawa Police Service the following month.

The OAG said it will not comment further on the case of the third employee be‐ cause it remains under inves‐ tigation.

The OAG said the nowformer employees did not have any outside contracts with the OAG and that it will not be disclosing the names of the companies with which they were involved.

The OAG said it will be rolling out additional ethics training for employees in the coming months and will en‐ sure that, going forward, ad‐ ditional controls are "imple‐ mented to verify outside em‐ ployment or contracts."

The OAG's code of con‐ duct

According to the OAG's code of conduct, employees of the agency are allowed to engage in work outside the office providing that work does not undermine the neu‐ trality of the OAG or violate the agency's conflict of in‐ terest rules.

Those rules say employ‐ ees who are concerned that their relationships or connec‐ tions with "existing or poten‐ tial contractors" with the agency could "result in a real, apparent or potential conflict of interest" must declare that risk to the OAG's internal specialist on values and ethics.

If the specialist decides the outside work does not vi‐ olate the agency's code, they will consult with the employ‐ ee's manager to provide writ‐ ten approval for the activity.

The rules also state that employment "either directly or on behalf of an external third party contracting with the government is consid‐ ered to give rise to a conflict of interest unless the con‐ trary can be established by the employee."

ArriveCan and Dalian Enterprise

In February, Auditor Gen‐ eral Karen Hogan delivered a highly critical report on the costs of developing the Ar‐ riveCan app. She concluded that spending on the app in‐ creased dramatically because of the government's over-re‐ liance on outside contractors.

That report revealed that one of the contractors, Dali‐ an Enterprise, had received $7.9 million for its work on the app as of last March.

It later emerged that Dalian's president and founder, David Yeo, is also an employee of the Department of National Defence (DND). The company says Yeo only became a public servant af‐ ter the project was com‐ pleted.

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.

Asked about the OAG and ArriveCan revelations in Cal‐ gary Wednesday, Prime Min‐ ister Justin Trudeau said Canadians should be able to expect that politicians and public servants will be "re‐ sponsible and efficient stew‐ ards of taxpayer dollars."

"This is an unacceptable situation," Trudeau said. "What we've seen in terms of the procurement process that's ongoing within govern‐ ment, there need to be signif‐ icant changes.

"That's why there are on‐ going investigations and that's why we will be making changes."