PSPC added that Coradix Technology Consulting was also suspended, and this would disqualify the companies from eligibility considerations on future supply arrangements. Dalian and Coradix received $7.9 million to work on the ArriveCan app, which was used to check the COVID-19 vaccination status of those crossing the Canada-U.S. border.
“PSPC has a framework in place to prevent, detect and respond to situations of conflict of interest or potential wrongdoings to safeguard the integrity, fairness, openness and transparency of the federal procurement system,” the statement said.
ArriveCan has been at centre of a political firestorm due to its excessive costs, which totalled an estimated $59.5 million compared to early estimates of $80,000. The auditor general’s recently released report on ArriveCan found that proper contracting and management practices around the app at several government agencies were not followed, and standard records were inexplicably missing.
Ottawa aims to give 5 percent of the total amount of government contracts to indigenous businesses by 2024. Mr. Yeo has claimed online to be the “direct descendent” of treaty-signing First Nations Indigenous Chief Robert Franklin of the Alderville First Nations.
Mr. Yeo is also a former candidate for the People’s Party of Canada (PPC) for the riding of Ottawa West Nepean in the 2021 election. That year, the party ran against COVID-19 vaccine passports and other pandemic restrictions being implemented by federal and provincial governments.
In a statement released Feb. 29, the PPC said Mr. Yeo had not disclosed during the candidate vetting process that his company received a contract to work on ArriveCan, and that such a revelation would “obviously have been grounds for rejecting his candidacy.”
The Epoch Times reached out to Dalian and Coradix for comment and did not receive a response.
