Government Operations Committee on Feb. 6th, 2023

[Paul Thompson]

On the question of fairness, our default is to competitive processes. There's only a specific set of circumstances in which we move to non-competitive instruments. I mentioned one, the intellectual property.

On transparency and openness, the bidding processes are very visible. We encourage, to the extent possible, multiple bids in competitive processes. The results of contracts are posted publicly on every department's website.

Another feature on fairness would be the fairness monitors we put in place for large contracts, just to ride along with the process and provide an independent assurance that the contract was issued fairly and appropriately.

Those are some of the measures we have on fairness and transparency. That's in addition to the integrity regime, which the minister spoke about earlier in response to some of the other questions.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you.

When the government contracts with McKinsey, what measures, if any, are in place to ensure that government information is not shared with other organizations that contract with McKinsey?

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Again, to the deputy—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Give a relatively short answer, please.

[Mollie Royds]

Sorry; just to clarify, are these the provisions related to conflict of interest?

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

No, it's the protection of information, the information that came about through the contract.

[Mollie Royds]

All right.

We would have specific clauses in the contracts associated with those requirements to ensure the protection of information. I'm sorry that I misunderstood the question.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Mrs. Thompson.

Now we'll go to Mrs. Vignola for two and a half minutes, please.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Minister Jaczek, who are consulting firms accountable to?

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

I can't get the translation. I'm sorry.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

To whom are consulting firms accountable?

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

I'm sorry. I just still don't understand your question.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Who are consulting firms accountable to?

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

To whom are the firms that are contracted with accountable?

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Yes.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

It's to the public service.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I think the question is, if we're contracting to McKinsey, who is it accountable to?

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Who is McKinsey accountable to? It's to the contracting department, or in the case of a direct contract with PSPC, to PSPC, but it's always to public officials.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

As far as I know, everyone knows what tools public servants are using, and public servants are accountable to the people, to Quebeckers and Canadians, because they are the ones that pay their wages and ours through taxes and income tax.

With respect to the tools it uses, why is McKinsey not as transparent with those who pay for these contracts through taxes and income taxes?

How is it that the data is protected, but it's okay for McKinsey to use it elsewhere in the world to do other analyses and make recommendations to other countries who may not be buddy-buddy with us?

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

I think, Madame Vignola, you are asking.... McKinsey gets data from us, and then they potentially can use it perhaps in a benchmarking process for other contracts that they hold worldwide. Is that what you're getting at, the privacy of that information?

Yes, okay.

Then you're asking if there's any provision in our contracts to guard against the use of that data—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Give a brief answer, Mr. Thompson.

[Paul Thompson]

The answer is yes, there would be limitations on how that data can be used. It would vary, I think, from contract to contract, but there are provisions.

Often the information we see from another country or another entity would be anonymized data. It would not have a company name or a country name. These are usually anonymized datasets that protect the identity of the organization in question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks.

We'll go to Mr. Johns for two and a half minutes, please.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Minister, we understand that there are times when we don't have internal capacity and the government needs to turn to external help, but these should be of last resort, not the government's first call. The problems here are coming from excessive use of costly outsourcing, which leads to higher costs and lower-quality services. We know that public service professionals in the public service are focused on giving taxpayers value and delivering the vital services that Canadians rely on.

Do you actually think this amount of outsourcing of government work is appropriate and that good-paying union jobs within the government are not worth pursuing instead?