Government Operations Committee on Feb. 15th, 2023

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'll have to ask for a very brief answer, perhaps in the next round.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Chair, I have not tried to examine the logos on all the documents that exist within IRCC.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, sir.

Ms. Kwan, welcome to OGGO. You have six minutes, please.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the minister and officials for appearing before the committee.

I just want to establish the process with respect to policy decisions. I fully anticipate and expect that it's the minister who makes these decisions. However, before the minister does, often officials will provide briefing documents and recommendations for the minister's consideration.

Is that the case for the immigration levels numbers or any other policy within IRCC?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Ms. Kwan, I want to make sure I answer your question. If I need to extend this to make sure I don't dodge it on you here, I'd be happy to.

The policy process, of course, comes to me. At the end of the day, my signature goes on whatever policy decisions we take. Sometimes there are delegated authorities to departments, but it's common for us to receive advice from different groups that could lead to recommendations. That is not a unique practice.

In addition to whatever exercise the department may undertake, I will on many occasions engage with stakeholders or partners directly.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

My question is this. At any point in time, did McKinsey engage in discussions or meetings with officials where they might have discussed policy decisions, or did work that would have implications for policy decisions? To that end, could the minister provide a list of the officials who actually met with McKinsey and what topics they discussed?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I think my deputy minister, who's in the room, would be better positioned to discuss engagement at the officials level with McKinsey.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Maybe the easiest thing would be that, if there is such a list, we could receive that list of where McKinsey had engaged in discussions with officials. Could you provide that list and what topics they discussed?

My next question is this. The minister said that there wasn't the capacity or they needed McKinsey to help build capacity within IRCC, yet IRCC staff within the department are on the public record as saying that they offered to work with the government with ideas and forwarded these ideas, and there was zero uptake. IRCC, by the way, is the one department within government that contracts out more work than any other department. That has been confirmed with a PIPSC report.

The other thing that has been noted is that IRCC does not make a reasonable effort to hire before contracting out. As well, IRCC has more grievances than any other department within government. This is on the public record, in a report that's there for everyone to see.

Given the comment that people tried to offer their ideas and suggestions, why were those not received well and taken up?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I have a different view, with great respect, Ms. Kwan, on your allegation about our being slow to hire and also on the interplay between McKinsey and officials within the department.

To be a little bit more specific, my view, of course coming in after some of the work was performed, is that the collaboration that took place between the consulting firm and the department actually did help grow the capacity. We're starting to see some of the work that has come about as a result of the groundwork that was done a few years ago result in new digital processes.

With respect to the allegation about being slow to hire, since the past summer we've hired more than—

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I'm sorry. I'm going to interrupt you here, Minister. I think you might have misheard me. It wasn't slow to hire. The issue is that the government and the department chose to contract out instead of hiring in-house.

In fact, there's a report here that I'll turn the minister's attention to, the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada's “Contracting Out Report”, which actually outlines very clearly the contracting out of IRCC and how it's actually breaching the collective agreement, by the way, in the number of grievances that exist within the system. That's there and on the record.

It has also been reported by CBC that staff within IRCC had offered to work with the department on some of these issues, yet that offer was not taken up.

I think the point here is that there is a systemic problem, I would suggest, within IRCC, then, where the workers are not being valued and we're not utilizing the talent from within. There needs to be an explanation as to why there is this level of contracting out that IRCC has engaged in with McKinsey.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

First, let me dispel any misconceptions that, somehow, there isn't respect for the public service. They are and have been doing extraordinary work under very difficult circumstances, particularly over the past few years. We ask an awful lot of them as we seek to grow our immigration ambition, and I'm grateful for the work that they do.

With respect to the specific contracts that we're talking about with McKinsey and IRCC, my view is that it was in an area that was both time-limited and that required incremental work that wasn't within the capacity...not to operate a new digital system in perpetuity but to help build the capacity to finish the design and implementation of it.

The contracts were entered into within the department, not at a ministerial level. If there's supplementary information that the deputy minister has on this, I would be happy to give her time to offer an explanation.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I will say this—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm afraid that's our time.

We're now into our second round of five minutes with Mr. Paul-Hus.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good day, Minister.

First off, I'd like to say that my colleagues in the opposition and myself were a bit insulted by your accusation that members were making unfounded accusations. That's what you said in your opening statement. I'll keep my questions simple, then.

Do you acknowledge that Dominic Barton was part of the Economic Council of Canada in 2016, yes or no?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Yes.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

At the time, was Dominic Barton still global managing director at McKinsey?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I expect, the way you positioned the question, yes. I don't keep tabs on when he came and left the company. I don't have a relationship with him.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Minister, we don't make unfounded accusations since we have accurate information.

We know that, when Mr. Barton sat on the Economic Council of Canada while being global managing director, the number of contracts awarded to McKinsey & Company skyrocketed. We also know that your old colleague, John McCallum, former immigration minister, stated in 2016 that he wasn't entirely comfortable with some of the discussions around the work being done in immigration.

How do you expect us not to connect all those dots? What are you basing yourself on when you claim that the statements we've made—that McKinsey is involved in IRCC's work—are unfounded?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I think it's an extraordinary and unfounded analytical leap to suggest that, because someone worked for both McKinsey and provided some feedback to the government of an economic nature, it somehow means that a different person was in charge of the immigration levels plan than was, in fact, the case. I know this because I am personally involved. Through my own experience in helping design the immigration levels plan with my officials and my team, I know where the motivation for those immigration levels plans came from—

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

I have to interrupt you, Minister.

Can you confirm Radio-Canada International's information? No one can claim that Radio-Canada International are purveyors of fake news.

Can you confirm the reports that immigration department employees complained about the fact that McKinsey and the Advisory Council on Economic Growth were too closely involved in the development of policy related to Canada's immigration targets?

Are you saying those reports are false?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I'm saying that your suggestion that a department made up of thousands of individuals who have disparate opinions is a monolithic entity that somehow unanimously disagreed with the approach I was taking is absolutely false. It's entirely possible that there are individuals who may have privately expressed disagreement, but my view—and I feel very well-supported by departmental officials at every level—is that we are on the right track when it comes to our ambition and immigration, because it's a good thing for the economy.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Minister.

My time is flying by and I'd like to talk about contracts.

Your department is that one that gave McKinsey & Company the most contracts over the last few years. Together, they total $24.5 million.

You mentioned that some of those contracts were related to assessments of internal processes and digital transformation strategies.

I suppose those two contracts alone don't account for the entire $24 million. What other contracts were awarded?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

My understanding is that there were two contracts. The first was in 2018-19 for $2.9 million, which was to do the external assessment of the processes that we would later come to revamp, and to provide a strategy and operating model for the digital transformation.

The second contract, which is the much larger of the two, was, I believe $24.8 million. That was mostly designed to help build capacity within IRCC to help focus on operational improvements, with a step-to-step pathway toward digitization and making sure we could build the capacity to deliver on a new digital system on a go-forward basis permanently.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

The contract that involved the development of the immigration strategy you announced in November, how much did that one cost?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

There was no such contract.