Evidence of meeting #49 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was know.
A video is available from Parliament.
5:30 p.m.
As an Individual
First of all, I want to answer that.
I think you should actually look at the testimony that was given—
5:30 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
I can, but can you answer the question, sir? You were leading McKinsey at the time.
5:30 p.m.
As an Individual
When you leave McKinsey.... As I said before, I'm not involved in—
5:30 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
This is about your time, while you were there, sir.
5:30 p.m.
As an Individual
On any given day, there were 3,000 engagements going on. That's not what I'm involved in. I didn't lead the pharma practice.
5:30 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Did you set the conflict of interest rules, though, and did you set rules that would have allowed someone to simultaneously work for the FDA and a pharmaceutical company? In Canada, if someone is working for a project for Health Canada and for a drug company, that's a problem.
5:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Mr. Genuis, that's your time.
Mr. Bains, it's over to you for five minutes.
5:30 p.m.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for making yourself available today, Mr. Barton, and for bringing your testimony forward.
I think you were talking a bit about the marketplace and you were cut off. Can you talk a little about that?
With respect to the steady growth of these contracts, how do you explain the increase? You were about to say something, but I think you were cut off.
5:35 p.m.
As an Individual
It was really around the question of outsourcing, and what's happening.
I think we're in a time of immense change and pressure on organizations, not just the government, but also the private sector and social sector. The consulting industry has been growing very quickly. That's just the underlying shift that's going on. Yes, it's happening in government, and it sounds like a very large increase, but it has also been happening in the private sector and the social sector. That's what I was trying to get at. Again, there are things like digitization. That's a one-off that has to occur. The COVID situation led to all sorts of issues for organizations.
All I know is that most consulting firms were extremely busy. They didn't have enough people to be able to do the work. Again, you should ask others who come in here to talk about it. I wasn't working there, but that was my sense of it.
There was a very significant increase in the size of the consulting market.
5:35 p.m.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
You indicated that the issue around human resources within government is that there needs to be more training and that governments may not be able to fulfill the labour pool for the skilled work that's necessary. We heard a little about this in the last meeting—about offering proportional salaries with the private sector and the labour pool for skilled IT workers already being limited, particularly if you consider the government's language requirements and diversity goals.
This action would intensify the demand based on the market needs that you're mentioning there.
Do you think this would attract the skills the government needs, or is it more likely to cause private sector firms to increase their wages to retain their employees?
How are we going to compete for the necessary skill set?
5:35 p.m.
As an Individual
We have to put more investment in training for the civil service, as I said, to build the capacity. These are all skills that you can learn, but we have to invest in people to be able to do that. That's what the private sector is doing.
I remember from McKinsey that for a lot of things we would be working on, five years later the companies were doing them. If I went to that same company and said we'd like to do this particular type of service, they'd say they were already doing it.
That's the sort of capability building we need to think about to help civil servants with the scale of issues that are coming up and to enable them to do it.
5:35 p.m.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
With contracts with, say, McKinsey, what measures are in place to ensure that government information is not shared with other organizations that contract with McKinsey?
5:35 p.m.
As an Individual
There are very strict rules on the data side, in terms of where that is. The data belongs to the company or to the organization you're working with. That's a very strict rule in the process.
5:35 p.m.
Liberal
5:35 p.m.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Have you ever or do you know of an instance where McKinsey met with the Minister of Immigration on Canada's immigration targets?
5:35 p.m.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
How can government improve access to contracts that the government signs with consulting firms?
5:35 p.m.
As an Individual
It could be perhaps this committee looking at it and doing some samples. You'd take a look at a sample of an actual contract and see what happened. How was the consultant selected?
That's what I would do if I were in here. I would take, say, five and look at the process of who was involved and how many competitors there were and then at the impact of what happened. Did the consultant—in terms of what they said they were going to do—actually make it happen? How did people feel?
I'd do a micro look at that and not just look at the macro.
5:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
That is your time now, Mr. Bains.
Next we have Ms. Vignola, please, for two and a half minutes.
February 1st, 2023 / 5:35 p.m.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Barton, for being with us this evening.
I looked at the recommendation made by the Century Initiative, and at the recommendations from the Advisory Council on Economic Growth. You were saying earlier that the government didn't act on the Century Initiative recommendation to welcome 450,000 immigrants, and that it had decided to increase the number to 500,000 immigrants. The Century Initiative also suggested that by 2026, the target would represent 1.25% of the Canadian population, which would mean 500,000 people in that year. That amounts to saying that the government is taking things even farther than one of your suggestions. I am saying “your” because you were on the Century Initiative board of directors, as was Mark D. Wiseman.
I further noted that many of the Century Initiative suggestions ended up among those made by the growth council. I'd like to understand why. You, Mr. Wiseman and Mr. Andrew Pickersgill, who helped you, were all involved in the Century Initiative, and many of the people from that organization were also on the growth council. I would therefore like to understand the ties between the two bodies.
Lastly, why is the government implementing, and even going beyond, debatable measures in terms of the preservation and promotion of French?
5:40 p.m.
As an Individual
There are a couple of pieces to the comments you've made.
One, the Century Initiative was separate, obviously, from the growth council. I think it was set up in 2011. A group of people worked on that. Mark Wiseman was a driver of it—
5:40 p.m.
Bloc
5:40 p.m.
As an Individual
Yes, but the Century Initiative started in 2011. I wasn't involved in the day-to-day, but I did give money to it. I thought it was a good initiative. Again, I wasn't in Canada, but I think it's a good thing.
Mark Wiseman was picked, but not because he was in the Century Initiative. He was the head of the Canada pension plan. That's why he was on there.
Everyone brings their own affiliations and views to the growth council. We had a very wide group. There were people on the growth council who did not want to increase immigration by very much. That was one debate that occurred. We gave the government.... We didn't say, in a single point, “This is what we think.” We said that the majority of people believe we need to take it up to 450,000, eventually, over time. Colleagues said, “Let's be careful. Do we have the ability to absorb them as they go through?” We gave a range.
There were also some people who were concerned about—