Yes, because—
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.
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.
6 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Say it's sensational to the families who have lost loved ones, sir. This isn't sensational; this is real life.
6 p.m.
As an Individual
What I know is that in that settlement there was nothing done unlawfully.
6 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Hundreds of thousands of people died as a result of the illegal misbranding and overpromotion of OxyContin. This happened in a context in which McKinsey was advising Purdue on strategies to increase opioid sales and target pharmacists who were already prescribing at higher levels. You didn't know about that. You say something happened that was wrong. I don't know that you know what was done that was wrong.
What did McKinsey do wrong here, in your view?
6 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
I'm afraid we have to end on that, Mr. Genuis.
We'll go to Ms. Thompson, please, for five minutes.
6 p.m.
Liberal
Joanne Thompson Liberal St. John's East, NL
Thank you.
I would like to just circle back to a conversation we were having earlier. It's come up in some of the back-and-forth. It is around the realities of moving into a 21st-century economy with COVID, where a world shut down and then at the same time opened up, and the reality of how challenging it's been.
Going forward and understanding that it's probably not going to turn in the next number of years into a very peaceful space in which we can methodically move forward in terms of managing the rate of change, how do governments, for example, work across sectors—including consulting firms—to bring preCOVID practices very quickly up to this very fast-paced reality in which we're finding ourselves?
Back to the transparency and data piece, how can we do this so that we don't continue to have these same conversations without having mechanisms that can give us assurances that things are indeed progressing in a way that is inclusive and ultimately allows governments to have workforces that are able to do much of this work?
6 p.m.
As an Individual
I think there are a couple of aspects.
Again, I go back to the training and reskilling of people. This is happening in companies. You see the training budgets in Fortune 500 companies accelerating at a very high rate. People are doing fundamentally different things. What I'm doing now will probably be very different from what I do five years from now, so how do I help to do that? They're spending a lot of money on that. That can be done internally. Again, when I was at McKinsey, other than the R and D that I talked about, our biggest budget was training, because you have to do it.
More resources are needed to train the people we have, and we need to recognize that that's the case. I think there can be private sector organizations to do that, including universities. You don't go away for a year. It's a two-week program, or its a part-time program. AT&T has done this. It's two hours a week, and you get a medallion certificate as a digital expert if you want to do it. It's done so you can work and learn, right? We need that.
There's a technology transformation that's needed in this government and in all governments. I don't want to be harsh about it, but we're in the Stone Age. We have to spend the money. That will need a lot to be able to do it, but it will enable the organization to do more if we do it.
In my view, it's the training and technology. I think that having people go in and out.... Having private sector people coming into government and government people going into the private sector is good to broaden the mind.
The other thing I always keep in mind with these changes.... The average lifetime of a company in 1935, which wasn't a good year to be on the stock exchange, was about 90 years. The average lifetime of a company that's on the stock exchange today is about 14 years. It just shows you the rate of change. It's very difficult to keep up. Nothing is going to replace the government. You're not going to have a new government, but we have to have that mindset.
Personally, for whatever it's worth, I think it's the training and technology.
6:05 p.m.
Liberal
Joanne Thompson Liberal St. John's East, NL
I certainly appreciate that you have come forward, and certainly you have been quite open to the questions, be it they're very direct at times.
Is there anything you would like to put on the record that wasn't said at the end of a conversation round?
6:05 p.m.
As an Individual
If I may make a personal comment, again, I'm finding this thing quite bewildering. I'm a Canadian who wanted to give back. I've been away from my country. I want to help. I think I helped. That's why I think the Prime Minister has said those nice things about me. It was not because we're friends but because of impact. I've been dedicated.
When I went to China to do that work, that was probably the most difficult professional challenge in my career. I've never had harder work. I feel like I've been trying to help. There's this scheme now that I'm somehow a puppet. I find it sad. I find it frustrating, because that is not who I am and what I do. It makes me sad—
6:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
I apologize, Mr. Barton. I've been doing this to you a lot. I have to cut you off again, because we're going to our next member, Mrs. Vignola, for two and a half minutes, please.
6:05 p.m.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I'll begin with some very brief questions.
There's a lot of talk about McKinsey. Is withholding the client's name, and asking the client not to mention McKinsey when asked about the links between them, part of the culture at McKinsey?
6:05 p.m.
As an Individual
Clients prefer confidentiality, because they don't want to let other people know that McKinsey's working there. They could be working on R and D. Usually, all of them have strict confidentiality requirements.
6:05 p.m.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Okay.
To whom should consulting firms working for governments be accountable?
6:05 p.m.
As an Individual
They're accountable to the client. The client—the government, or whichever department it is—has made an agreement on what it is they'd be delivering, and they have to then deliver that.
6:05 p.m.
Bloc
6:05 p.m.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
I don't know what term I should be using for consulting firms, but are they also accountable to partners, associates or shareholders?
6:05 p.m.
As an Individual
Do you mean to the shareholders of the company?
If a company hires us, it's the management team that will evaluate what's happening. The shareholders aren't aware. They're not into the details. Even the board wouldn't know the details.
6:05 p.m.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
That's clear, but in the end, the work is also done on behalf of shareholders. So consulting firms are not accountable to citizens at all.
6:05 p.m.
Conservative
6:05 p.m.
As an Individual
There is a similarity between the two. The departments have to have.... Obviously, if they haven't done something right, they're going to be in difficulty, because the population will be upset.
6:05 p.m.
Conservative
6:10 p.m.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
Thank you.
The Prime Minister, in terms of the outsourcing, says it's “illogical and inefficient”. Those are his comments on one of the contracts that went out. He tasked the Minister of Public Services and Procurement and the President of the Treasury Board to look into it, to take a deep dive and look at what's going on with outsourcing.
He's deflecting. He's not taking responsibility.
You're here. You haven't had answers for a lot of questions. You said, “We don't know how it works.” I have a pretty good idea how it's working. It's working for consultants quite well.
Who knows? Who knows how it works? Who has the answers to the questions we're asking?
6:10 p.m.
As an Individual
The first thing I'd say is I'm not surprised at all that the Prime Minister's.... He wouldn't be involved in the contracts. As I said, these are done by civil servants. The Prime Minister has nothing to do with it.