Yes, I do.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Dear members of the committee, good afternoon.
For more than 75 years, BDC, the Business Development Bank of Canada, has played a critical role in the Canadian economic landscape, being the only bank exclusively devoted to entrepreneurs. We lend to Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises, SMEs, we advise them and we invest in them.
Our role is one of development, where we act in complementarity with private sector lenders and fill important gaps that the market can't. This is a role that our teams perform with exemplary rigour and efficiency.
As a result, far from being a burden for taxpayers, our activities are profitable and have allowed us to have paid $1.3 billion in dividends to our shareholder, the Government of Canada, since 2011. Above all, our activities benefit our 95,000 clients, who rely on us to grow their business and, in the process, contribute to the prosperity of the country.
The pandemic has been a defining moment in BDC's recent history. Without a significant increase in our workforce and within a demanding context, we supported more than 25,000 new clients. In doing so, the pandemic concretely demonstrated BDC's expertise and the potential to support an even greater number of entrepreneurs.
During the summer of 2021, Canada was still facing a tumultuous economic context, and the BDC team felt compelled once again. It is at this moment that I joined BDC. Driven by the ambition to have an even greater impact, we embarked, with the members of our board of directors, on a strategic review. It was in the context of this exercise that we made the decision to seek the services of a consulting firm.
It was clear, both for me and my team, that we held the leadership and full ownership for this review. However, we were also convinced that to conduct this exercise with the rigour and scale it deserved, the use of an external firm would prove useful. This process would help us refine and confirm our understanding of the future. It would also provide us with the perspective of other development banks around the world and expose us to best practices. This would equip us with the best possible tools to begin the next phase of implementation, because there was never any doubt that BDC would assume full responsibility for the execution of the strategy.
Our intention to work with an external firm therefore resulted in the launch of a formal, competitive, and rigorous call for tenders, at the end of which the selection committee made the decision to retain McKinsey. Their work started in 2021, and ended in the summer of 2022. Assessing the value for money of this contract calls for a two-step analysis: short-term and long-term.
In the immediate sense, I can tell you that this process has allowed us to adopt a renewed, ambitious and inspiring strategic vision of what BDC can do for Canada over the next ten years. The external firm helped us increase our capabilities and carry out the strategic exercise in parallel with our day-to-day operations. It was essential for me that the consultants work in synergy with my colleagues. This approach has enriched our strategic thinking, widened our perspectives, and facilitated meaningful knowledge transfer.
Longer term, I have the firm conviction that in a few years, we will look at this exercise the same way that we look today at the origin of the success of BDC Capital. Developed 11 years ago with the help of consultants, this ambitious strategy has enabled BDC Capital to play a leading role in growing the Canadian venture capital market from $1 billion in 2009 to nearly $15 billion in 2021. That contract was assuredly a good investment—for BDC and for the Canadian economy.
It is obviously too early to reach similar conclusions regarding the contract that has just ended. But I can assure you of one thing: bringing to life the ambitions of our strategic vision and the full realization of our mandate as a development bank are at the heart of all the decisions we make.
With that, it will be my pleasure to answer your questions.