Transport committee  I will reflect Minister McKenna's remarks that it allows the financing capacity of the government to be spread further. That's point number one. Point number two is, at times, private capital can incent innovation. There are fascinating stories of how in private-public partnerships, private capital incented changes in construction approaches and operational approaches that have actually lowered the costs of projects and improved their overall performance.

Transport committee  I am.

Transport committee  From a personal perspective, public-private partnerships are helpful to fill the infrastructure gap, which is significant and growing.

Transport committee  That's correct.

Transport committee  No.

Transport committee  No, they were not.

Transport committee  They were McKinsey senior advisers, who, as Andrew alluded to, are contractors. They are not employees.

Transport committee  In the spirit of being helpful to the Infrastructure Bank, we offered a set of names, which, should they meet the criteria of the CIB and should the CIB choose to hire them, as they were doing a search for risk management leadership and talent, they would have severed their relationship with McKinsey.

Transport committee  To the best of my knowledge, it was all pro bono. Nobody got paid anything.

Transport committee  That's not correct. Our work in 2020 was associated with the onset of COVID. At the time, if we cast our minds back, when COVID hit, the infrastructure industry, like just about every other industry in this country, was turned upside down. Projects were being stopped. Labour was not working.

Transport committee  I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. Should Minister McKenna answer that question? I'm not quite sure what the protocol is when a question is asked of two people simultaneously.

Transport committee  That's great. This is an interesting question and a really important question.

Transport committee  It's maybe why we're here discussing this. I think, as everybody on this committee recognizes, there's a pretty significant infrastructure gap in Canada, and I hope everybody on the committee also recognizes that there's a very direct link between the status of our infrastructure, the economic growth in Canada and the competitiveness of our country globally.

Transport committee  I'll add to that the context of that email exchange. If we cast back to the launch of the CIB, in early 2018 there were virtually no employees there. The chair of the board at the time felt there was a need to stand up a risk management organization to protect Canadian taxpayers' interests.

Transport committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to attend today's meeting. I am a senior partner at McKinsey & Company in Toronto, and I have been with McKinsey for 28 years. I'm currently the managing partner of McKinsey Canada and responsible for all of our operations across our offices in Montreal, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver.