The House of Commons government operations committee yesterday agreed unanimously to summon seven cabinet members to explain the ballooning costs of federal consultants..The investigation targets McKinsey & Company, a global consulting firm whose ex-managing director was a Liberal appointee as Canadian ambassador to China, according to Blacklock's Reporter..“Why would the prime minister and his government continue to work with such an ethically bankrupt company?” said Conservative MP Stephanie Kusie (Calgary Midnapore, AB). “The final question is, who is pulling the strings?”.McKinsey & Company in the past five years received $91.8 million in known contracts from federal departments, agencies and Crown corporations. At the time, Dominic Barton, a shareholder and former managing director, was the Canadian ambassador to Beijing. He resigned back in 2021..Records showed McKinsey & Company also acted as a consultant to 22 corporations run by the Communist Party of China. “I’m a bull on China,” Barton said in a 2016 speech to the Council on Foreign Relations. “As I’ve said, I’ve probably drank the Kool-Aid there.”.Kusie yesterday sponsored the motion to review all contracts with McKinsey & Company dating from 2011. The motion also asked that the President of the Treasury Board and ministers of finance, health, immigration, national defence, public safety and public works whose departments hired McKinsey now appear for questioning..“There is an ethical question about the relationships with Mr. Dominic Barton,” said New Democrat MP Matthew Green (Hamilton Centre, ON). “That’s just a fact.” Green said the committee must review relationships with the entire “consultant class” in Ottawa..Federal agencies spend $16.7 billion a year on consultants, by official estimate. “We found a pattern, companies like Deloitte, Pricewaterhouse Coopers and many, many others, this kind of consultant class,” said Green..Payments to Deloitte in a single year, 2020, totaled $106.9 million though the global firm’s subsidiaries fell under criminal investigation in Japan, China, the United Kingdom, and Spain. A 2015 Government-Wide Integrity Regime threatens blacklisting of any federal contractor or subsidiary found to breach laws. “That wouldn’t apply to Deloitte Canada,” a Department of Public Works deputy said in 2021 testimony at the government operations committee..Bloc Québécois MP Julie Vignola (Beauport-Limoilou, QC) yesterday said billions spent on consultants came on top of the cost of operations for some 283,000 federal employees..“For taxpayers this means they are paying double,” said Vignola. “They are paying for consultants and for the public servant whose expertise is not being called upon, whose skills are not being recognized.”
