Evidence of meeting #62 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 service.
A video is available from Parliament.
Jarislowsky Chair in Public Sector Management, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
As I said, I don't think it's a simple zero-sum.... There are certainly things that could be done in-house by public servants. Certainly managing outside suppliers more effectively is one of them.
There's no right mix. Right now, as a ballpark, the government spends something around $50 billion on its public service and $15 billion on contractors. That could be a little more or less on both sides. It's always going to be a mix and that's a judgment call that has to be exercised by governments.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
I'm afraid that's your time, Mr. Johns.
Mrs. Kusie, you have five minutes, please.
Conservative
Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB
Thank you, Chair.
Madam Bonin, to go back to it, who were your contacts when you were working on the project?
You mentioned mostly the project within defence, but your title was social health care, public and education leader, which seems to me would go beyond the defence portfolio.
Who specifically were your contacts, then, with these projects within the government?
Managing Director and Partner, As an Individual
There's always the lead project authority, who is put in play. If I'm the leader on the engagement, I have to interact with this person the most often. The clients will also pull together a steering committee of public servants. There will be formal reporting to that committee to seek input on the progress of the work.
As the lead on engagement, these are mainly the people whom I would be personally interacting with.
Conservative
Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB
Have you ever communicated with a member of cabinet?
Managing Director and Partner, As an Individual
No. My only interaction with ministers or political staff was strictly in the context of my philanthropic work. It was never a one-on-one conversation, and it was not about the work of McKinsey or any other management consulting work that I've ever done.
Conservative
Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB
Who have you been in communication with regarding your philanthropy work?
Managing Director and Partner, As an Individual
I have not been in communication with them, but I have been at events where there were ministers and/or political staff. Again, in the context of those events, whether it was the True Patriot Love gala or something like that, I would have been there strictly just to greet them and to thank them for their support.
Conservative
Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB
Have you ever been at an event with Madam Telford?
Managing Director and Partner, As an Individual
I'm sorry. I didn't hear the question.
Conservative
Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB
Have you ever been at an event with Katie Telford?
Managing Director and Partner, As an Individual
No, not that I recall. I don't know her personally.
Conservative
Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB
Okay.
During your time in your role as social health care public and education leader, business with the current Government of Canada and McKinsey increased significantly. What do you attribute this to?
Managing Director and Partner, As an Individual
As I said in my opening remarks, when I joined the firm, McKinsey had already been serving the government at the federal and provincial level in other parts of the public sector, and it was done opportunistically. McKinsey thought that it would be a really good thing to serve the Government of Canada more fully and that it could benefit from certain expertise that McKinsey could bring to the table. I was the first partner to join the firm to be 100% focused on doing that.
If you combine that with the opposite end...changes have occurred over the last three or four years, namely a pandemic, a war and geopolitical instability. I think what you will see is that McKinsey's not an anomaly. The public sector had to lean in on various firms in order to either get specific expertise at a point in time or, in some cases, pure capacity.
What happened with McKinsey is not really unlike what happened with other firms.
Conservative
Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB
Okay.
To be clear, if we receive all of the unredacted documentation and we review all of the unredacted documentation, we will not see communications between you and ministers, and we will not see communications between you and the Prime Minister's staff.
Managing Director and Partner, As an Individual
There is no communication in my time and my work at McKinsey where you will see any communication with those two parties.
Conservative
Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB
Okay.
In your experience, has McKinsey ever provided recommendations that were considered by cabinet?
Managing Director and Partner, As an Individual
In my work at McKinsey, we made recommendations to the public servants whom we were making those recommendations with. They were not public policy recommendations, because it is strictly not the role of consultants to make them. The public servants were the ones who were to present those to cabinet, in whatever shape, form or package.
We did the assessment and we did the work; it was the public servants who did so.
Conservative
Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB
My final question would be whether recommendations from your firm to cabinet through these other intermediary levels provided advice on what to do, and did not just suggest how they do it.
Managing Director and Partner, As an Individual
No. The work that a management consulting firm will do is assess a situation and come up with an observation that then gets turned into a recommendation by the public servant. It's strictly not the management consulting firm's role to do so.
Conservative
Liberal
Joanne Thompson Liberal St. John's East, NL
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome, to the witnesses.
Could I begin with you please, Mr. Wernick?
Ensuring proper information management is essential to the efficient access of information systems. Do you believe that improving the training on and digitizing the storage of contract information for DND contracts will improve the existing disclosure structure?
