Thanks, Mr. Chair.
I'm sure there are a number of amendments, so I don't want to speak at too great a length about this particular one.
There is a risk that the farther we go back, the more we will start to dilute the work the committee is going to be able to do with an awful lot more information. Why is it that we're looking at these contracts with McKinsey in particular? I think Mr. Green spoke to the ethical questions with respect to the connections in particular between the Prime Minister and Dominic Barton and McKinsey. Also, there's the morality of the Government of Canada dealing with a company like McKinsey. Brand “Canada” is something I know we as Canadians are all very proud of. I'm very proud of it. When the government throws in with companies like this, not just by continuing to do the business it has always done with them but rather by increasing it by many orders of magnitude year after year, then is this a message that the Government of Canada approves of the ongoing involvement of this company in some of the things my colleague, Ms. Kusie, outlined?
We're talking about election spending scandals in France and corruption scandals in South Africa. We're talking about helping countries like Saudi Arabia identify, hunt and target individuals who are critical of their government so they can punish them and their families. Of course, something we're all aware of is the opioid crisis we're facing in Canada and in North America, and McKinsey's role in working for Purdue Pharma in supercharging opioid sales and availability. They're basically giving Purdue the road map to light an inferno that continues to engulf communities and sweep up and take lives right across our country. That is specifically why we're talking about McKinsey. The rise in the numbers of consultants hired by this government is astronomical when you look back.
I don't think there's a limit on the comparisons that could be made, but it's important that we consider why it's McKinsey in particular. Why is this example of outsourcing the one that finds itself in front of this committee? In some of the initial reporting by CBC in early January, there were public service whistle-blowers. I'm not talking about any of the other service providers. We're not talking about things that took place 10 years ago or under previous governments. I want to quote from the CBC article:
“We had a few presentations on very generic, completely vapid stuff. They arrived with nice colours, nice presentations and said they would revolutionize everything,” one of the sources said.
“In the end, we don't have any idea what they did,”.... [It was] “nice marketing” that “isn't science.”
We were spending $100 million, and the bureaucrats don't know what they were doing. We do know, from those same whistle-blowers, that McKinsey had a hand in transforming policy, not just in management consulting.
It's important that we keep our eye on the prize and remain focused in what we're doing here. I hope we're able to maintain that focus as we move through the amendments that are being proposed.