Government Operations committee  Is that on a weekly basis?

Government Operations committee  She was hired less than six months ago.

Government Operations committee  One.

Government Operations committee  It's Ms. Véronique Dorval.

Government Operations committee  I'd like to clarify something. She left McKinsey nine years ago.

Government Operations committee  The contract was signed at the end of August 2021.

Government Operations committee  They are people who remain linked to a brand, an employer, a university or an organization.

Government Operations committee  I don't think so, but you'd have to ask her.

Government Operations committee  It was well discussed, well thought out and, again, it was not my decision. It was a decision that was taken by the executive team and the board of directors, to bring in external consultants not to develop the strategy but to help, to support and to contribute to the vision.

Government Operations committee  This was a decision that we took for specific reasons at the time. I'm in front of you saying that I hope we will not have to take this decision again, and we will find other options—I promise.

Government Operations committee  We look at our capacity internally, and I have to say, when it's up to delivering projects, it's done internally. When we feel we need to bring extra expertise to the table, that's when we think about bringing in consulting firms.

Government Operations committee  Thank you for the question. The purpose of the strategic exercise was not to address any particular weaknesses in the organization. As we had always been there to serve Canadian SMEs for the past 78 years, and as we were just coming out of a pandemic and the working environment had completely changed, we wanted our development bank to be extremely efficient.

Government Operations committee  To be honest, very few people around the world have gone though anything like that.

Government Operations committee  First of all, much of the information that led to the strategic review came from inside. What we received from McKinsey was not advice on pandemic management but rather economic advice about SMEs. McKinsey provided us with comparable international data and data from other development banks.

Government Operations committee  It was the summer of 2021.