(Ottawa) Federal ministers and senior management at consulting firm McKinsey are due to come and explain themselves before elected members of the Standing Committee on Government Business and Budget Estimates, which will examine the more than 100 million contracts awarded by the Ottawa multinational since 2011.
Posted at 4:23pm
Michel Saba The Canadian Press
The Conservatives’ motion, passed on Wednesday, stipulates that MPs will examine the effectiveness, administration and functioning of contracts.
Seven ministers will appear for an opening speech and three rounds of questioning, the committee decided. A member of McKinsey Canada’s senior management team and the firm’s former CEO, Dominic Barton, are also appearing in court.
In introducing her motion, Conservative MP Stephanie Kusie described McKinsey as a “shadow government”. In her opinion, the current situation “demoralizes” officials and leads to “incredible waste”. Ultimately, the member asked, “Who really runs Canada?”
Julie Vignola, the Bloc Québéco’s public services, procurement and government affairs critic, further questioned whether the government has the expertise in-house and, if so, why it isn’t being used.
“There’s nothing more demotivating for an employee than feeling that their work isn’t recognized,” she said. And for the taxpayer, that means they pay in two places: they pay for the consultant and they pay for the abused employee. »
This is nothing new, summarized New Democratic Party (NDP) ethics critic Matthew Green, denouncing “a class of consultants” while pointing to other firms that do business with the government, notably Deloitte.
Mr Green said he hoped the exercise would change practices so that it would be difficult for future governments to get into a situation where they have “close personal ties with senior management and some of these consultants and subcontractors”.
No objection from the Liberals
Parliamentary Secretary to the Secretary of Public Services and Procurement Anthony Housefather said the McKinsey study was an important part of the committee’s “watchdog” role.
However, he introduced an amendment that was passed to allow the study to cover the last Conservative term in office, which dates back to 2011, rather than starting when the Liberals took power in November 2015.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was questioned by journalists just before parliamentary work on the dossier began earlier in the day, said he “warmly welcomes the work that the government committee will begin today to ensure Canadians actually have value for… receive their investments.
“Most of these contracts were selected through open competition,” he said in a scrum after his Shawinigan time.
PHOTO NICOLE OSBORNE, THE CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVE
Justin Trudeau
However, only three of the 23 contracts awarded to McKinsey by Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) were awarded through competitive processes, the ministry said in a press release on Wednesday evening. These three contracts still account for more than half of the total value of contracts awarded to McKinsey.
Mr Trudeau recalled that he had asked two of his ministers – Procurement Helena Jaczek and Treasury President Mona Fortier – to assess the circumstances surrounding the award of the contract.
“We have very strict rules on contracts that are awarded to different companies to improve services and modernize what public service can offer Canadians. We will ensure that these rules have been followed,” added Mr. Trudeau.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, who was also visiting Mauricie, took the plunge during a press conference to denounce “waste, including contracts for friends”.
“We saw (for) McKinsey: 100 million for this company associated with Justin Trudeau, whose director is a personal friend of Justin Trudeau,” he added in reference to Dominic Barton.
Impressive list of witnesses and documents
The ministers appointed to the committee are President of the Treasury Board Mona Fortier, Minister for Public Services and Procurement Helena Jaczek, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Chrystia Freeland, Minister for National Defense Anita Anand, Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Minister Sean Fraser, Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos and Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino.
The Committee also “recommends” that the Auditor General conduct “a performance and value for money review of engagements McKinsey & Company has received since the 1st State.
Any department, agency or Crown Corporation that has contracted with McKinsey must submit a large number of documents in French and English to the committee within five weeks. The list contains copies of the tenders related to the contracts awarded to the company; Offers, tenders, concluded contracts; all correspondence and electronic communications; Statements of work performed for each contract; all services rendered; the invoices provided; Records of all payments and hourly and/or daily rates calculated for each employee.
The committee also directs McKinsey to provide copies of any government-requested documents within three weeks, without necessarily having them translated. To do this, the committee also requests that the company provide the description of the work carried out for each public contract, the timesheets, the rates charged, the names of the people responsible for each project and any documents related to the subcontracting with a contract , all communications concerning it and the full list of its clients since 2011.
The study begins with the resumption of work on Monday 30th January.
More than 100 million contracts
Ottawa’s heavy spending on contracts awarded to consulting firm McKinsey has been in the news for the past few weeks.
Public Services and Procurement Canada took stock Wednesday night in a press release, saying they have awarded McKinsey & Company a total of 23 contracts totaling $101.4 million since 2015.
According to the PSPC, three of these contracts were awarded through competitive processes with a total value of US$55.8 million.
Eighteen of these contracts (totaling a value of $45.6 million) were issued as calls against a National Master Standing Offer (NMSO), a single-source contracts program. Outside the NMSO, two individual contracts were awarded, including a low-value contract ($24,860) and a zero-value contract, the ministry statement said.
PSPC notes that these figures do not include contracts that may have been awarded by other federal departments and agencies under their own authority. “We are in the process of collecting information about contracts awarded by other ministries and agencies and can then provide this information,” it said.
With information from Émilie Bergeron