Public Accounts Committee on Dec. 11th, 2025

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

I am sorry. I thought we were going to go in the regular order. The chair is following the tradition of the last round for the Bloc Québécois.

I would like to put my question to Mr. Roy.

David Court sits on your board. He has ties to McKinsey. He is also one of the directors now associated with Brookfield, the investment firm thatMark Carney was the chairman of.

How many contracts were awarded by your firm to McKinsey? Did Mr. Court recuse himself from all of those decisions when he was on the board?

[Alexandre Roy]

As the Auditor General of Canada indicated in her report, 18 contracts were awarded during the period when we audited PSPIB. None of the contracts were awarded by the board of directors. Everything was done by the management team. The board of directors, of which Mr. Court is a member, was not at all involved in awarding the contract.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Can you tell us how much you have invested in Brookfield? When were the investments made?

[Alexandre Roy]

As I was saying, PSPIB is a global investor, an investor that does business with many large investment firms around the world. Brookfield can be part of that. I do not have the details of what we currently have at Brookfield. I can provide more details to the committee if that information is deemed necessary.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

I would appreciate it if you could provide the committee with an answer in writing.

I am curious about the Century Initiative, which was started by Dominic Barton and Mark Wiseman, who once was the CEO of your organization.

As the chief risk officer, how do you assess the risk of reputational damage, particularly because of these direct ties to your organization? What impact can this have on PSPIB's credibility in Canada and abroad?

[Alexandre Roy]

I am sorry to correct you, Mr. Lemire. Let me tell you that Mr. Wiseman was the chairman of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, not of PSPIB. So Mr. Wiseman has never had any dealings with PSPIB.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

I am sorry.

Does Mr. Barton have direct ties to your organization? Mr. Barton was not there either, was he?

[Alexandre Roy]

As far as I know, Mr. Barton has never had a direct relationship with PSPIB.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Okay.

The connection with Mr. Court still exists. What do you see as the risk to the organization's reputation?

[Alexandre Roy]

With respect to reputational risk, as I told you, PSPIB follows procurement procedures, and Mr. Court is in no way involved in any PSPIB decisions regarding the awarding of contracts with McKinsey.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Roy.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

Thank you.

I have a question for Mr. Thompson.

Were any non-competitive contracts awarded?

[Paul Thompson]

Just to clarify, over what period would that be? Have we ever issued a non-competitive contract?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

It would be just during the time period of the audit.

[Paul Thompson]

I mentioned that one of the contracts under study with McKinsey was issued as a sole-source contract. That was the first one. The other four McKinsey contracts that were studied used the national master standing offer of Public Services and Procurement Canada. Those are the ones that were reviewed.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

Could you elaborate on the decision-making process for competitive versus non-competitive contract awards? What factors do you consider and why?

[Paul Thompson]

As my colleagues have noted, we've gone to significant lengths to strengthen our procurement processes in order to have a stronger centre of expertise, a stronger review process, bolstered documentation and quite a bit on training and awareness. Part of this is to follow, basically, the logic structure that Mr. Hayes outlined earlier. Is there a clear objective of what the task in question is? Do we have the in-house capability to do it? If not, do we proceed to a contracting model? If so, the first step would be designing it as a competitive process by default to ensure that you get the best value.

That's basically the structure we're now following.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

Thank you.

It's over to you, Mr. Rana.

[Aslam Rana, Liberal, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Mr. Jennings, could you please provide examples of measures that the BDC put in place following the Auditor General's report?

[Philip Jennings]

I'll outline what I think are the largest measures, and I'll expand a bit on those examples.

The first one, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, is about trying to have a central, independent and specialized procurement function within the department. Prior to the findings of this audit, we had it relatively decentralized, so it did allow some inconsistencies. The advantage of having it centralized and independent is that, at the end of the day, you have a challenge function for those who are looking to procure.

The second thing, as I've mentioned already, is the quality assurance activities. Prior to any contract being signed in the department, long list of things have to be checked off, including the documentation that has to be provided. That is for 100% of the contracts that get signed. I can give examples of things that have to be checked off: Are there security checks for the people doing the contract? Is there a conflict of interest? Is the statement of work clear?

The last thing is a tiered governance structure to ensure that at the end of the day, you have the right larger view, depending on the complexity and size of the contracts.

Just to go back to the previous questions about sole-sourcing, we have an oversight committee. All sole-source procurements have to go through that committee to make sure they meet the test. The thresholds are higher than zero when it comes to competitive processes.

[Aslam Rana, Liberal, Hamilton Centre, ON]

As for my last question, do ISED employees follow an annual conflict of interest declaration process?

[Philip Jennings]

We do, as required. That is subject to all employees having to fill out and declare any potential or real conflict of interest.

[Aslam Rana, Liberal, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Happy holidays and merry Christmas to everybody who is listening or is present here.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

Thank you.

Just as a final note, following up on Mr. Kuruc's question about audited entities only partially agreeing with an OAG recommendation, this is usually captured in this committee's reports.

Thank you to our witnesses for their testimony and for participating today. I wish all of you a very restful holiday.

For committee members, I have some reminders. Supplementary dissenting opinions and citations for the follow-up study on gender-based analysis plus and the study on Arctic water surveillance are due on Friday, December 12. The lists of witnesses for the public accounts of 2024 and 2025 are due on Monday, December 15.

I would just like to echo everybody's sentiments. Thank you to all members and to all the support staff we have here—the clerks, the analysts, the interpreters, our technical support and the staff who support the members.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!