Government Operations committee  I think the focus on outsourcing and contracting in the federal government is a broad enough umbrella to get at these issues. Any given firm.... It's not going to lead to a useful outcome, because if we solve McKinsey by creating a bunch of rules, you're still going to have a po

Government Operations committee  I think the focus on whistle-blowing would imply that, in each of these cases, it's a really obvious, sensationalist breach of good governance. It's actually more of a slow burn, and sometimes it's more subtle. I think public servants whistle-blowing.... They're not going to whis

Government Operations committee  In the research around sclerosis and barriers to innovation in the federal government, almost universally, when you ask public servants why this is something that the federal government complains about a lot.... It's pretty common. You can find quotes, through the clerk, going ba

Government Operations committee  The situations where it makes sense to bring in outside expertise are.... Sometimes public servants will say that, for example, for surge capacity. If there's a sudden need for talent and you can't in particular hire them or it might not make sense to build a permanent team, it c

Government Operations committee  I don't know this specific contract, but certainly, the idea of having open contracts, in this case, over 81 years seems outrageous. This is when you have to ask what the point of having a civil service is. Our model is predicated on this idea of a permanent, merit-based and ne

Government Operations committee  Management consultants have always played a pretty big role in public administrations globally with some variation. Canada has a really interesting history of having worked with management consultants early on in some of the first government reform exercises in the sixties, right

Government Operations committee  No.

Government Operations committee  No.

Government Operations committee  No.

Government Operations committee  Yes, for sure.

Government Operations committee  No.

Government Operations committee  Do public servants recognize their own competencies in-house? Is that sort of the question?

Government Operations committee  That's a tricky question. It's tricky because obviously I don't want to comment on every manager in the federal government. That would be impossible. In general, I see two things going on. A smaller group of public servants is I think more aware of what could be done in-house

Government Operations committee  On sole-source contracts, definitely there are very few people who would recommend that as a best practice for the responsible stewardship of public funds. It doesn't tend to come up as the go-to model for how to issue these contracts. I think that, in any given case, the proces

Government Operations committee  Yes, I'm sorry; that was a long answer.