Conflict of Interest
Video / August 1, 2024
Transcript
Hi everybody, my name is Constant Kouassi. I work with the COI section as a senior analyst and what we do is we review conflict of interest, and we address conflict of interest matters. Today the presentation will be about conflict of interest and post employment.
In terms of conflict of interest, our role and everyday work is based on a set of policies and directives. We have the DAOD 7021 series, which is the main set of policies that we base our review on. And in addition to that, we have the Chapter 3 of the DND/CF Code of Values and Ethics.
When we look at the DAOD 7021 series, it's a set of policies. We have the 7021-0 which tells us about conflict of interest and post employment. We have 7021-1 which addresses in detail what is conflict of interest and how we arrive at mitigation of conflict of interest. And we have the dash 2, which is a specific policy about post employment. As well, we have the acceptance of gifts, hospitality and other benefits, which is addressed by the DAOD 7021-3. And we have the dash 4 which talks about solicitations, sponsorships and donation. Before, our section was attached to the defence ethics program. So sometimes we refer to the 7023-0 about Defence Ethics and the 7023-1 about the Defence Ethics Programme.
What is conflict of interest from our understanding? We, based on our policies, have three types of conflict of interest. We have the conflict of duties. Conflict of duties is basically when you have two tasks that may come into conflict. I give the example of someone who plays a role of ombudsman and has a substantive position in a section where it plays that role. So, you will see that you could be at the same time the judge and part (of the section). So, these two tasks would come into conflict. This is an example of conflict of duties.
We have the organizational conflict of interest and it's every situation where you are in a position where your decision, your action could impact the integrity or the impartiality of the organization. Core values, impartiality, integrity, credibility that we would like to preserve through the conflict of interest policies.
And we have the personal conflict of interest, which is the situation where your personal relationships could put you in a situation where your credibility is affected. For instance, you work with your wife, or you work with your son and you have to make a decision. This kind of situation could create a personal conflict of interest.
When we look at those three types, we could say that those three types could be real conflict of interest, apparent conflict of interest, or potential conflict of interest. The real conflict of interest is where the conflict is obvious. Everybody can see the conflicts. There is no argument about the existence of the conflict.
And the apparent conflict of interest is the situation where maybe there is no conflict, but from a reasonable person perspective, he may see a situation that is conflict, and is uncomfortable with that situation. So, we say that there is an appearance of conflict. And the potential conflict of interest is the situation where there is no conflict in the time being, but in the near future that situation would lead to a conflict of interest situation.
So, from our assessment, all those three conflicts of interest have the same importance. We consider them the same because at the end of the day, they have the same consequences.
So who is affected by COI regulation? It's all DND employees and CAF members are concerned by our policies, generally speaking. And when we go into detail, we may have some specific policies for specific DND employees or CAF members. That's the example of the dash 2 that we will see, which concerns specific categories of members and employees.
So where are the zone of conflicts? First zone of conflicts are the external activities. So anytime that you walk outside your organization, you are in a position where that external activity puts you in a conflict of interest situation. So, what you have to do is to disclose that situation for us to review it and see if there is a conflict or not or what guidance you have to follow.
So, when we talk about external activities, we talk about outside employment, we talk about volunteering, we talk about any undertaking outside your substantive position. So, another zone of conflict is the assets and liabilities. In terms of assets and liabilities based on the DAOD, we have two categories.
The first category is the non-exempt assets and liabilities. Those non-exempt assets and liabilities are the ones that you have to disclose. These concern all the assets and liabilities that could provide you, additional revenue. For instance, you have means in publicly treated securities, you have self administered or self-directed RRSPs, you have interest in partnerships, proprietorships, joint ventures, private companies, family businesses. You will see that all those assets that have a commercial purpose have to be disclosed for us to see if that could place you in the conflict of interest or not.
And we have the exempt assets which you don't really need to disclose because there is no risk for them to put you in a conflict of interest, in the case of your house, your car, your cottage, all your personal assets.
So, the general standards and I was just naming a few: the exempt assets are not subject to compliance measures and the non-exempt assets and liabilities are subject to the compliance measures. DND employees and CAF members must declare any non-exempt assets or liabilities on a specific form that is the DND 2839 E and any inquiries about the classification of your assets in exempt or non exempt has to be. When you are not sure you could get in touch with the COI section, and we will guide you on that.
Divestment of non-exempt assets and liabilities. It's the case when we find that the assets and liabilities could place you in a conflict of interest situation and we would advise that you divest them. It simply means that you have to get rid of those assets and liabilities and you will avoid being placed in the conflict of interest situation.
Another zone of conflict are the acceptance of gifts, hospitality and other benefits. The rule here is that you cannot in your official duties accept a gift which is more than a minimal value without the approval of your chain of command. So anytime that in your official role you have been offered a gift, this has to be approved before you accept it.
We have as well the case of public soliciting, sponsorship and donation. This is the case when you undertake a public soliciting, a sponsorship or a donation. This one as well requires approval. For instance, asking the coffee shop on the base to donate a few gifts to your annual health and fitness day. This one has to be approved because we are canvassing them.
And we have the passive solicitation. The passive solicitation is the one that is admitted. It's when you are very passive in your solicitation. We give the example of you putting a box in the corner of your office with a note on it asking for anyone to provide any support for a specific activity without you using the DWAN equipment. So that's what is considered as passive and is admitted.
And we have the political activities. Political activities are another instance of outside activity with a specific way to address them. So, when we talk about political activities, we talk about participation in politics at any level, making a speech to electors and asking them to allow yourself to be announced as a candidate for election. So, any involvement in political activities are addressed by this aspect. So, these are the rules concerning the Regular Force members. The main role is that they cannot be involved in political activities. And there is one exception with the approval of the ADMRS. It's for municipal election and election for boards like Indian boards, all those that do not have politics that are not captured by political parties. So, this one is permitted to Regular Force members, subject to approval from ADMRS.
And we have the Reserve Force as well. They are permitted due to the fact that they work on a part time basis. They are permitted to be involved in political activities, but they have to follow the process of obtaining approval from ADMRS.
Then we have DND employees as well. There is a specific process for them to be involved in political activities. They have to contact the Public Service Commission to obtain a first admission rating the involvement in those political activities. Once they have done that, they now contact our office for us to review the involvement in political activities. So, at the end of the day, ADMRS is the authority that approves the involvement in political activities.
So, as I was saying, when it comes to Indian bands, school boards, regular members, they can be involved in those activities. They must declare to ADMRS their intention to seek the nomination to be a candidate and will guide them on the behavior that they have to have in order to not be placed in the conflict of interest situation.
When it comes to disclosing your external activity or your outside activity, this is the form that you have to fill out. It's the DND 2839. So that form is in both languages and you have a box where you can provide the detailed information for us to consider that in our review.
So now let's talk about that specific policy which is post employment. Post employment is a specific conflict of interest policy for a specific category of CAF members and DND employees. The aim of the post employment is to reduce the likelihood that a senior DND employee or senior CAF officer will find himself or herself in a conflict of interest situation due to their past obligation, past official duties, past position. We balance that with the fact that we don't want to limit the future employment prospects. So anytime that we have a disclosure of post employment, this is the balance that we do responsibilities versus future employment prospects.
So here the mere perception of conflict of interest can lead to restriction. So, the reason is just that public servants have a higher ethical standard and ethical duties compared to people from the private sector. So, the rationale that we use to review conflict of interest disclosure is the perception of a reasonable person. So anytime we ask ourselves what will be the position of the reasonable person placed in the same condition.
So, who is subject to the post employment measures. It's senior CAF members with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel/Commander or above in the Regular Force or who are on full-time service in the Reserve Force and we have senior DND employee occupying the position equivalents to EX -1 or above. That's why this policy is very specific to those people.
So, if for instance, we receive an application from someone who is not in that category, we just tell that individual that he is not concerned by the policy so we cannot review their disclosure or guide that individual to the best way to disclose what he has to.
What are the post employment restrictions? First restriction. You cannot accept employment with a private entity with which you personally or through your subordinate has significant official dealing in a year prior to the termination of your service. So you cannot make direct contact to DND or the CAF or a federal organization on behalf of an entity with which you are working for or for a period of one year following your release. We'll give you a timeline of a year. And during that time there is some action that you can't take.
You cannot, for instance, work with a private entity with which you were used to collaborating when you were on duty. Because we consider that maybe you created the condition to obtain that position or you created a condition to make them comfortable to obtain that personal advantage. And that is what could be seen outside the organization. So, you are prohibited from doing that and you cannot advise any entity using information concerning DND or CAF program or policy that is not available to the public.
So, if you've got information due to the responsibility that you were assuming, you cannot use that information to benefit an external entity.
So, we talked about significant official dealings. How do we understand that? For us significant official dealings are any kind of dealing that's attached to your responsibilities, it could be meeting and business dealings, contract negotiations, contract management. So anytime that you have been in business, dealing/interacting with an external entity that is standard entity being a business partner of the organization.
Making direct contact. Talking about direct contact because remember one of the post employment restrictions is that you can't have direct contacts back to the organization without approval. So direct contact means communicating on behalf of a private sector with a DND employee or a CAF member or in certain cases a federal government employee.
So, we talk about negotiation, meetings even as an observer, seeking information, official or nonofficial discussions. Anytime that you speak on behalf of an external entity with a DND employee or a CAF member, this creates a direct contact.
So, what do we have to disclose or to declare when it comes to post employment? We have to disclose the firm offers of employment that we receive when we are concerned by the policy.
We have to as well disclose the offer that we have accepted. We have to disclose any intention for us to create a private company with the perspective that we look for a contract with the DND organization. So, all this has to be disclosed and when reviewing that we provide you the best guidance to not be placed in a conflict of interest situation.
So, what do we do to make our disclosure? We submit to the COI the DND 2840 form. In the form there is a section that asks that our disclosure is being confirmed by our immediate supervisor (or the last one that we had) so this one as well could provide his permission or provide his confirmation by e-mail or by writing a letter. And we have as well the DND 2841 which is the request for a waiver.
So, some people don't really have to make direct contact when they get their post employment. In that case there is no need for them to request a waiver. Just the declaration is sufficient. But sometimes they need to come back to the organization for certain negotiations. In that case they have to fill out the DND 2841 form.
So how do we review the form? When we receive the form, we are guided by a specific section of the DAOD which is section 6.2 and what we look at is the extent of any of the underlying COI risk. So, what is the risk is what we look at. And is there any adverse perception from that situation is also what we ask ourselves. Is there the existence of an identifiable and important benefits that would accrue with DND? This position that is an undertaking, is it beneficial in a certain way to DND/CAF because some people have great experience, so even if they go working for an external entity, they could work on a specific contract already awarded to that entity and this in certain ways benefits the organization because they have the experience required to better conduct the contract.
It is something as well that we look up the potential for the prospective employer to gain an unfair commercial advantage that this employer got any unfair commercial advantage from that position from hiring this individual.
We also look at the sensitivity of information possessed by the person. So, you will understand that people with higher ranks present the highest risk. People with lower rank will have lower risk as well because we consider that it's based on the kind of information they have in position during the operation.
So, there is your right to reconsideration. When the applicant is not in agreement with our review, he may ask for the DM or the CDS to reconsider the situation. In this case, contact the office and request for a reconsideration of the review that we have made.
This is the form that has to be filled out for the post employment declaration. This form is the DND 2840 and we have the request for a waiver anytime that you want to come back for a direct contact, which is the DND 2841 form.
Here is the process. The applicant will send the form to the COI section. The analyst reviews a document submitted to them and makes his own recommendation. If the analyst considers that it does not have enough, they interact with that person to collect the maximum amount of information for his review and the ADMRS submits their recommendation.
So, the analyst when he makes his recommendation the finding goes to the ADMRS. After that the ADMRS, depending on if the applicant is a civilian or a CAF member, forwards the file to the DM or the VCDS for them to make a decision. After that the COI informs the applicant of the decision in writing.
So that will sometimes depend on the rank of the individual. Certain people will be informed directly by the ADMRS because they have higher rank. People with lower rank will be informed directly by the executive director. So, the information in writing is received by the COI office directly to the individual. So here it's a letter. We send the letter when it's signed to the individual with the outcome, the final outcome of the three.
Now in terms of general rules, even if some people are not concerned by the post employment, there is a general standard of conflict of interest that we call the SACC team. This condition says that anytime that a private entity hires someone that will work for the organization, we will look at if that person is involved in a request for a proposal on which that company is bidding. This one is something that could be raised by the competition to cancel a process if that company won that process.
So anytime that the company hires someone, they have to check the contribution of that person on any bidding process they are interested in. So, this one is a general rule from PSPC that concerns everybody.
When there is a failure to comply here are a few outcomes. First one would be the change of duties. There may be a release or administrative action taken against that individual that did not comply and there may be disciplinary action as well under the National Defence Act.
So, for this COI section, its headed by Mrs. Vivian Chu and the manager is Jen Harrisson. Here you have the general e-mail of the section where you have to send your information when you have a disclosure.
Thank you for your participation.