The federal Conservatives are calling on the auditor normal to probe the federal government’s use of consulting agency McKinsey for out of doors recommendation — an organization the Tories say deserves shut scrutiny due to its previous ties to China and the opioid disaster.
McKinsey has acquired greater than $100 million in authorities contracts over the past seven years — rather more than the agency acquired when former prime minister Stephen Harper was in workplace.
The general public service has been relying extra on outsider advisers because it navigates coverage challenges, such because the mounting immigration backlog.
McKinsey was retained to assist on this file and others, however some public servants have questioned the worth of their work.
The corporate’s previous ties to Dominic Barton, the agency’s former international managing director and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s former ambassador to China, has additionally been a supply of controversy.
The federal government procurement course of is carried out by civil servants, not politicians, however the Conservatives keep one thing is amiss.
Chatting with reporters on Parliament Hill, Conservative MP Garnett Genuis stated McKinsey has been concerned in “so many scandals world wide.” He pointed to its previous work with Purdue Pharma, an organization that aggressively offered opioids, and authoritarian regimes like China and Saudi Arabia.
WATCH: Conservatives push for investigation of McKinsey contracts
Conservative MP Garnett Genuis says his celebration will put ahead a movement within the Home of Commons to have the auditor normal look into federal contracts awarded to the McKinsey & Firm consulting agency beneath the Trudeau authorities.
“Thus far, the Liberals have disclosed at the least $120 million in contracts to McKinsey, an unlimited sum of money that retains rising. But regardless of this big price ticket, media stories have quoted senior public servants who say they don’t know what McKinsey did in return for these contracts,” Genuis stated.
“Canadians deserve solutions. They deserve solutions not merely on how a lot of their cash was spent, however what precisely their cash was spent on and what worth they obtained from these contracts.”
Whereas Conservative Chief Pierre Poilievre has tried to depict Barton as an in depth private good friend of the prime minister, Barton advised a Commons committee probing the contracts final week that the 2 males are merely acquaintances and haven’t any significant relationship.
Barton additionally insisted he had no involvement in any contracts granted to McKinsey over the previous few a long time.
“I had no involvement in any way in any awarding of paid work to McKinsey by the federal authorities since I relocated to Asia in 1996,” he advised the committee.
Procurement Minister Helena Jaczek has stated the federal government is doing a “full assessment” of the McKinsey contracts to make sure they align with all Treasury Board insurance policies and directives.
Genuis stated that is not adequate.
“We do not consider Liberals may be trusted to analyze different Liberals,” he stated. “We’re asking the auditor normal to come back in and do that investigation.”
Auditor Normal Karen Hogan finally will determine whether or not to probe the contracts. Whereas parliamentarians can request an investigation, it is Hogan who makes the ultimate name.
Requested why the AG ought to concentrate on McKinsey when different companies get much more federal cash for comparable work, Genuis stated Barton’s previous connections to the federal government — he additionally additionally served on former finance minister Invoice Morneau’s advisory council on financial progress — demand a better look.
WATCH: MPs query former head of McKinsey about nature of relationship with Trudeau
Former head of McKinsey & Firm Dominic Barton was questioned by Liberal MP Anthony Housefather on the extent of his friendship with the prime minister throughout his look earlier than a Commons committee investigating federal consulting contracts.
The NDP is concerned with reviewing the federal government’s rising reliance on exterior companies — not simply McKinsey.
The celebration says it additionally needs to assessment all contracts handed to Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Accenture, KPMG and Ernst & Younger.
“Canadians are actually upset to see that the Liberal authorities has given a whole lot of thousands and thousands of {dollars} to a non-public firm as an alternative of letting Canada’s public service do the roles we employed them to do,” stated Gord Johns, the celebration’s procurement critic.
“Now we have a reliable public service that might be doing this work, however the federal Liberals would fairly fund his rich guide associates. We have to resolve how a lot cash has been spent in contracting with personal firms, exterior of McKinsey, beneath each the Liberals and Conservatives.”