The American firm McKinsey is also nesting here. It is to this firm, we better understood during the last electoral circus, that we owe the implementation of vaccination campaigns and communication strategies during the pandemic. Several of its working documents, as shown by Radio-Canada, even bore the government logo. The American firm’s consultants were paid $35,000 a day. In total, the bill amounted to $6.6 million. The contracts were obtained without competitive bidding.
The urgency of the situation justified the use of this multinational, repeated an uninhibited François Legault to justify the privatization of this public health crisis. For him, there is nothing “abnormal” there. The folks at McKinsey “helped save lives,” he says. So. That’s all. Really ?
It’s not just for the pandemic that the government has relied on McKinsey. The Prime Minister’s obsession with comparing Quebec with Ontario was fueled by at least one report commissioned by the same private firm, on behalf of the Ministry of Economy and Innovation. How much public money, each year, goes into the pockets of such consultants who replace state personnel?
McKinsey is a huge consulting firm, one of the largest in the world. On his roadmap, there are not only good shots. In the United States, the firm has admitted its responsibility in the opioid crisis. McKinsey had helped, through its marketing advice, to boost sales of the painkiller OxyContin. the New York Times reports that McKinsey has agreed to pay $573 million for its role in the crisis, which has resulted in deaths and strained policing.
The firm advises the majority of the two hundred largest companies in the world. Is its independence from these clients ensured in the context of its other activities? The chained Duckwho has been tracking the company for years, observes that it is accused of “multiple conflicts of interest”.
Before the pandemic, the European Federation of Consultant Associations estimated public spending on similar firms at 657 million euros. Numbers now on the rise. Why is so much money being sent this way, when the civil service in democratic countries must, in principle, be trained and equipped to respond to the questions and situations that legitimize its functions?
After forty years spent sipping neoliberal potions, many politicians share the idea that the state should be seen as a business. By thus confusing their country with the business world, they endorse the idea, on the one hand, that the State is powerless and, on the other hand, that the company to which they assimilate it will find itself bankrupt. if they don’t get help.
François Legault affirms that the decision to use the McKinsey firm is not a matter of politics, but of the senior public service. If this is indeed the case, this should help to act to strengthen it as soon as possible. After all, social disappointments, there will be others.
In the meantime, conspiracy theorists are happy to believe that our governments are controlled by foreign forces. In truth, these governments are above all manipulated by the ideology that they themselves have secreted: all-in-private, even when this solution turns out to be obviously drying and deleterious for the community.
The influence of these private firms is growing. Not only do they generate holes in the public budget, but they also find ways to exempt themselves from taxation. As a Senate commission of inquiry in France has just shown, they also encourage the growth of English in the state apparatus, in the name of language formatting.
The investigation of the French Senate pleads for the urgent implementation of provisions to control, according to strict rules of ethics, the participations of these private firms in the governance of the State. These companies must publicly declare their interests, those of their main players and those close to them. In other words, these consultants are assimilated, no more and no less, to lobbyists solely serving their interests.
In Quebec, the question of reviewing the terms by which public services come to submit to such private interests is not even on the table. On the contrary. The government of François Legault even agreed that the data on the commitments of these firms be kept secret so as not to harm their business!
Lobbyists are treated generously in this half-country. This even allows them to aspire to become a member of the government, without their past being a source of embarrassment. This is the case for Kateri Champagne Jourdain, officially lobbyist for the benefit of the promoter of a wind energy project even though she was a candidate for the CAQ. The Prime Minister also found himself happily eating with his candidate-lobbyist in the company of the leaders of the firm that employed her. Is this what is called the sharing of skills? And Mme Champagne Jourdain has just been appointed minister.
CAQ candidate Daniel Bernard, elected in Rouyn-Noranda, was registered as a lobbyist for the Quebec Mining Association throughout the election campaign. Nine days after the election, he still was. That one of the main issues in his constituency involves pollution levels linked to mining industry products probably does not worry anyone. Because obviously, he will act with complete independence of mind. How to believe for a moment the opposite?
In the half-country of Quebec, who still wants to believe that none of this should die or change?