Thank you, Chair.
Minister, one of the major concerns that I have about McKinsey is how they intentionally work multiple sides of the same issue, serving competitors in the same commercial space, serving regulators at the same time as the clients they regulate and even sometimes having the same analysts working both sides. The New York Times has, for example, reported on analysts working simultaneously for Purdue Pharma and for the FDA responsible for approving those drugs.
In your areas of responsibility in the security space, I'm concerned about the possibility that McKinsey and even specific analysts at McKinsey worked for the CBSA and worked for hostile foreign actors, and that they perhaps applied lessons that they learned in their advice to other actors.
My first question is this: Before retaining McKinsey, did you seek information about what other clients they worked for in the areas of security and defence, especially clients who are hostile to Canada's interests and values?