Evidence of meeting #50 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 data.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Helena Jaczek Liberal Markham—Stouffville, ON
I clarified succinctly, I think, that the staff in my office have never met or communicated with McKinsey.
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Those are disappointing answers, to say the least.
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Conservative
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the minister and the staff for joining us today.
Minister, do you make the decisions as to when internal or external expertise is sought?
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
I just wanted to clarify that.
Can you please share with us the details on McKinsey & Company as a supplier of procurement instruments established by PSPC?
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Helena Jaczek Liberal Markham—Stouffville, ON
Mr. Bains, are you referring to the fact that McKinsey was pre-qualified in terms of standing offer supply arrangements?
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
I'll rephrase that.
Can you give information about the contracts awarded to McKinsey by client departments and how decisions to procure professional services work with client departments?
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Helena Jaczek Liberal Markham—Stouffville, ON
Mr. Thompson, perhaps you have been able to collate some of the related information.
4:30 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
As was mentioned previously, the 24 contracts, with the exception of two, were administered by PSPC, but we had client departments for whom we were putting these contracts in place.
Beyond that, there are contracts that individual departments would do within their own delegations. That is not something we have a line of sight to. That's part of the Treasury Board's work in following up and conducting the review, although any contract over $10,000 that a department has would be disclosed individually by those departments. That's the way it would work. If it's above a certain threshold, it would come to PSPC to be the contracting agent. We would execute the procurement on behalf of a client department.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Can you explain the difference between supply arrangements and standing offers?
4:30 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
They are both instruments to use to help facilitate procurements.
The supply arrangements, as I mentioned, do some of the steps of a procurement in advance, particularly the pre-qualification of companies. They would be put on a list for a range of services, but it does not constitute a contract.
A standing offer goes a bit further than that and puts in place a pricing mechanism so that goods or services could be procured at a predetermined price and called up by a department. They are different instruments that help facilitate procurement by other government departments.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
What are the advantages of having supply arrangements, and how valuable are they?
4:35 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
They are very valuable.
As my colleague Mollie alluded to, they were particularly useful earlier, during the pandemic, to facilitate and speed up the procurement process by doing some of it in advance, having that work ready to go and finalizing contracts on the remaining pieces under those two instruments.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Minister, do you have any oversight in selecting bidders?
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Liberal
Helena Jaczek Liberal Markham—Stouffville, ON
Absolutely not, Mr. Bains.
In fact, as you probably know, we recently went through an ITQ, an invitation to qualify process related to administering the dental plan for Canadians, which is obviously an important policy of our government. I was completely blind to the six people who put forward an intent to qualify. They were blinded to me. Now that three are moving forward through the process, they are again blinded. I have no knowledge of which companies are moving forward. How they will be processed and evaluated will not be known to me at any stage.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Thank you.
I'll go back to Mr. Thompson.
How many federal contracts have been awarded to McKinsey since 2011? Do you have a number on that?
4:35 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Unfortunately, I'm only in a position to speak to the contracts issued by Public Services and Procurement, which were the 24 I mentioned. The Treasury Board Secretariat is doing further work to gather the information on departments and what did individually with their own authorities.
4:35 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
We are looking back to 2011.
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Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Okay.
With regard to total value, would all of that be determined after that?
4:35 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Yes, that's correct.
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Liberal
