(Ottawa) The Leader of the Official Opposition, Pierre Poilievre, and the Leader of the Bloc Québécois, Yves-François Blanchet, want to know what the tens of millions of dollars paid to the consulting firm McKinsey were used for. They are calling for an investigation by a parliamentary committee, but are refraining for the moment from going so far as to request an independent public inquiry.
McKinsey once again made headlines last week when Radio-Canada revealed that Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government had given it 30 times more money than Stephen Harper’s Conservative government.
The sum of the contracts reached 66 million during the seven years of the Liberals’ mandate. Some of these contracts were given without a call for tenders. The Department of Immigration is the one that would have used it the most, according to the report by the public broadcaster.
The two opposition party leaders want to force the government to reveal all contracts and documentation related to McKinsey to the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.
The sums that have been paid constitute a “waste” of public funds, according to Mr. Poilievre, as the Liberals have multiplied deficits since taking office. “A multinational which is the subject of a criminal investigation in France and which had to pay penalties for its role in the opioid crisis which killed many people in North America”, he underlined.
PHOTO JUSTIN TANG, THE CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES
Pierre Poilievre
“Whether we use subcontracting to supplement the expertise of a state apparatus or a public apparatus, I understand, recognized Mr. Blanchet. But whether we replace expertise, whether we substitute ourselves for expertise or even potentially set aside the expertise of a public service to dictate rules and practices, is debatable. »
In addition to the issues of costs, awarding contracts and transparency, the use of McKinsey also raises the issue of increasing immigration thresholds. He is concerned about the links between the pressure group Century Initiative, which advocates public policies to increase the Canadian population to 100 million people by 2100, and the consultancy. Its co-founder is Dominic Barton, who was McKinsey’s big boss until 2018. A year later, he was named Canada’s ambassador to China.
