Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for inviting me, members of Parliament and Mr. Chairman.
I will address you in both French and English from time to time, and I will attempt to answer questions in the language in which they are asked of me.
I will not read through my notes, because that would be awfully boring. You have had all of this for some time now.
To present myself, I'm a sort of hybrid. I have a hybrid formation. I have an M.B.A. and I also have a Ph.D. in communications. I studied sociology and human behaviour, which was very helpful in this case, and psychology.
I also have experience in the field, because half of my career was spent in business doing management and doing consulting, including with the government, and what we're seeing with McKinsey right now I can't say I saw when I was a consultant. That's one of the main issues I have with this situation.
That's about me. If you want to know more about me, just go to my website, duguay.org, and you will find out everything you want to know about me.
Today, the committee's purpose is to study the contracts awarded to McKinsey by the federal government. I am familiar with the consulting world, and there are many consulting companies. Why is McKinsey being scrutinized at this time, but not other companies?
What I am going to tell you will help answer that question.
I have done a fair amount of research by reading this book and several articles. I have been interviewed by many journalists, who then wrote articles. I was even interviewed on RDI by Kim Vermette. You will find all of that on my website.
Let's start now. I will try to be brief.
The single most important thing I noticed about McKinsey is their culture of secrecy. That's the most disturbing thing, and it's not in Canada and not in Quebec and not in Ontario: It's all over the world, and I find this very, very troubling. I said so repeatedly in the media. I am worried. That worries me. That alone is cause enough to ask questions, but you ask questions and you never get answers.
They work for competing firms, sometimes with conflicting interests, saying it doesn't matter because they have a firewall and people within their firm do not talk to each other. Fine; I believe you, but mistakes happen.
They also work in the U.S., for instance, with health care corporations and with the FDA, which supervises them. I find this hard to swallow, personally.
They also work with competing countries. For instance, they helped China build the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea and turned around and took a contract with the Pentagon to counteract the influence of China in the South China Sea. I'll let you draw your own conclusions on that.
They consult on just about anything. I was being facetious at the time I was interviewed on TV and said that soon they will give us cake recipes. Of course, I was not serious, but it seems so.
That said, no law prevents McKinsey from doing business in Canada. It has not broken any laws. No one has told McKinsey that it cannot do business with a Canadian company or the Government of Canada. That cannot be said at present. We have even been told that it abides by Canada's ethics rules.
That comment came from a credible individual, and therefore I must presume that they were telling the truth. It is also possible that our ethics rules are not stringent enough and that we are considering only Canada's ethics, and not looking more globally. If we consider that McKinsey helped—
I'm sorry. I'm told that my time is up.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You can read the rest.