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.
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Let's say the general counsel found, for example, that there was an inappropriate relationship such as may have existed in the OxyContin case. Would they then have reported that to you?
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Did your general counsel ever come to you to report something like that?
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
For example, some of the other things that McKinsey has been accused of, let's say, in the United States, include working on the Trump administration's immigration system and what I think most of us find is a very distasteful practice with respect to asylum seekers and immigrants. While you were there, did this come to light, and did your general counsel come to you about this?
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Again, with respect, now that we've moved to a different line—which is no longer the government's inappropriate relationship with McKinsey because that sort of seems to have disappeared—and we want to talk about whether McKinsey is or is not a company we want to do business with and whether or not we want to change our rules to say that certain companies should be excluded, the right people would be the corporate witnesses who are still at McKinsey, such as the chief compliance officer. Is that correct?
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Of course.
I want to thank you again for being here. I thought you were very forthright, and I appreciate your testimony, Mr. Barton.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Thank you for giving a few seconds back to the committee, Mr. Housefather.
We'll do our three-minute rounds.
Mr. Genuis, please.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Housefather has made a valiant attempt to help and defend the witness, but I want to clarify and underline our position, which is that there are not different lines. There is the same line. The line is that the witness, Mr. Barton, led McKinsey for about a decade, and during that time, McKinsey was involved in myriad ethical and moral scandals around the world, which the witness appears to have been largely unaware of on his testimony.
At the same time, he was working with the Government of Canada and advising the Prime Minister on a series of issues that would have had relevance to some of those same clients. The advice that he was giving to the Government of Canada would have had relevance to Chinese state-owned enterprises that McKinsey worked for, private sector clients, various companies that were regulated by the Government of Canada. It is not different lines, as Mr. Housefather suggests. It's the same line.
I obviously don't hold Mr. Barton accountable for the current activities of McKinsey or anything following his departure, but I think it is appropriate to hold the leader accountable for the things his company did or didn't do, which include providing advice to Purdue Pharma, advice that included paying bonuses to pharmacists for overdose deaths. That was something that came out of the culture that existed at McKinsey, sir, while you led McKinsey. However, you said you don't know about McKinsey's work on opioids, so let me ask you quickly a number of other questions about what you were or were not aware of.
Were you aware of McKinsey's work for the Saudi government during your time at McKinsey?
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Were you aware that the work included identifying the Twitter accounts of influential dissidents and providing their names to the Government of Saudi Arabia, or of the subsequent harassment that those people experienced?
As an Individual
That is an allegation, and the update is that the individual in particular went to court, sued McKinsey and lost, appealed it and lost, so you should be careful about saying “allegations”. You should be very careful about that.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Sir, first of all, I'm in a parliamentary committee, and you should know that. Second, Mr. Abdulaziz was told by the RCMP that his safety was at risk here in Canada after a McKinsey report to the Saudi government identified three prominent Twitter accounts that were negatively impacting perceptions of Saudi economic policy. What about that is disputed?
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
What about what I just said is disputed?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
I'm afraid that's our time.
Mr. Kusmierczyk, you have three minutes, please.
Liberal
Irek Kusmierczyk Liberal Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Barton, I know you didn't get a chance to answer some of the questions and allegations made here by the MP across the way, so I just wanted to provide you with a bit of time, if you'd like.
As an Individual
Thank you.
I believe McKinsey is a very values-driven, principled firm that has done extraordinary work on Ebola, on MERS and on the development of the vaccines. It does a huge amount of work on getting unemployed youth to employment. It's a very large firm.
You're picking issues, and you're right on Purdue Pharma. It's a mistake, but there are very many other areas where it's worked well.
There's another thing I might just point out. It's interesting that today, for every position that's available in McKinsey, there are 300 people who are talented who want to join McKinsey.
Number two: McKinsey continues to grow and continues with clients it's working with on repeat work. That's what I see.
Number three: It's the most significant leadership factory that's out there. If you look at CEOs or people running organizations, that's where it is.
Your definition of McKinsey is an extreme view, and you love quoting the book. That book hasn't sold, and those were examples from it. There are some quite negative views of that, stating that it's a very biased view. It's an anti-capitalist view that puts McKinsey in the centre. Apparently, if you continue with that book, McKinsey was responsible for the financial crisis. I'm surprised that you haven't mentioned that, because we invented securitization, and therefore, the financial crisis occurred.
There are too many of those lines that are made like that, and I think they are exaggerated. Yes, McKinsey has made mistakes. It's a large firm. It has 40,000 people. All organizations have those challenges, but if you look at the impact that the firm has had around the world in many different places, it's very significant.
I just think you're coming at it from an extreme view. That is my view.
Liberal
Irek Kusmierczyk Liberal Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
Mr. Barton, you ascribe the growth of the use of consultants to the fact that, especially in the last two years, we were in this extraordinary time of the pandemic, but there are other forces acting upon the government right now, whether it's AI, the need for digital transformation, cloud computing or remote work, for example.
Is there knowledge transfer that takes place whenever McKinsey or a consultant engages with a government?
As an Individual
Yes, there should be. You should ask the people who come in front how they do it, and ask the civil servants if that happened. Especially if they take lean operations, that is completely about skill building. You're training people to be able to do it: frontline people, security guards. They are not training top management; they are training people who are lower down the organization about new skills, and they can take that forward.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Thank you, Mr. Barton.
We have Ms. Vignola for one minute, please.