The General Auditor’s Office fires two workers for federal contracts

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OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has signaled his Liberal government is reconsidering how it evaluates and accepts job proposals following the recent dismissal of two public servants who were earning extra money on federal contracts.

Canada’s auditor general’s office said Wednesday it had fired two employees and is investigating a third after discovering they made money through federal contracts and had not disclosed it to their managers.

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Karen Hogan’s office does not provide details about the contracts or which departments issued them, only saying that they were not from the auditor’s office.

The National Post first reported the story.

“We have seen that procurement and contract processes within the public service are sometimes unacceptable,” Trudeau said Wednesday in Calgary.

“That’s why we’ve launched investigations and are rethinking how the public service conducts procurement and contracting.”

Trudeau said Canadians have a right to expect governments – both political and non-political – “to be responsible and efficient stewards of taxpayers’ money.”

“And that’s why we take this so seriously,” he said.

The auditor’s office said it had launched an internal investigation of workers in June last year and concluded one case in September and the other in December.

“Based on the results of the investigations, the Attorney General’s Office revoked the individual’s security clearance and terminated his employment. OAG employees must have a valid security clearance,” Natasha Leduc, a spokesperson for the auditor general’s office, said in a statement.

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Those two cases were referred to the RCMP in January, and Mounties advised the auditor general’s office to take them to Ottawa police the following month.

The Ottawa Police Service did not respond to a request for comment.

Hogan’s office said the two cases are separate and that neither individual was an auditor or manager.

“Additional values ​​and ethics training will be provided to all OAG employees in the coming months, and additional controls are being implemented to verify outside employment or contracts,” Leduc said.

The revelation comes weeks after the Department of National Defense launched an investigation into one of its employees, David Yeo, founder of Dalian Enterprises Inc., who has done previous work for the Canadian government, including on the ArriveCan app.

A spokesperson for the company has since defended its integrity and says steps were taken to address conflict of interest concerns related to its founder, who began working for the Department of National Defense in September.

Dalian Enterprises Inc. said Yeo filed a conflict of interest declaration, resigned as a director and officer and put his company’s shares in a blind trust because his main client is the Canadian government.

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The government’s conflict of interest directive states that public service employees must refrain from having private interests and engaging in outside employment that may affect their ability to be objective and impartial.

“Employees should inform their deputy director of outside employment and activities that could result in a real or perceived conflict of interest,” Martin Potvin, spokesperson for the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, said in a statement last week.

“The directive also requires that employees seek the approval of their deputy manager before entering into a contractual agreement with the Government of Canada for which they receive any direct or indirect benefit or income.”

Any federal public service employee who has not met the requirements could be dismissed.

The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat said it does not have centralized records on the number of Government of Canada employees working abroad.

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