(Ottawa) The former big boss of the McKinsey firm denied Wednesday having a relationship of friendship with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, contrary to what the Conservatives are claiming. A parliamentary committee investigation is trying to shed light on the hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts awarded to the consulting firm by the federal government.
“No, I’m not a friend,” he said in response to a question from Alberta Conservative MP Stephanie Kusie, who bombarded him with questions about the nature of his relationship with Mr. Trudeau.
“I have a professional relationship with him,” he added, adding that he did not have his personal phone number and had never been in a room alone with him. It is a “fiction”, he said in a press scrum.
He also said he did not know Mr. Trudeau until 2013 because he had lived in Asia for a long time and followed less what was happening in Canada. Mr. Trudeau was then leader of the third opposition party in the House of Commons.
The man who led McKinsey until 2018 remained sluggish throughout his testimony before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. He had traveled to Ottawa from Nairobi, Kenya to deliver it in person. Opposition parties have questioned him about McKinsey’s role in the opioid crisis, determining Canada’s immigration threshold and securing juicy government contracts.
All the contracts concluded went through a process managed by civil servants, not by the political class. And I had no idea what those contracts were about. You have to talk to the teams that were there.
Dominic Barton, former CEO of McKinsey
MPs from the Conservative Party and the New Democratic Party (NDP) have been hounding him on the consultancy’s role in the opioid crisis. McKinsey had to pay nearly $600 million to 47 US states for helping pharmaceutical companies boost the sale of opioids, including the maker of OxyContin. Dominic Barton was the managing director for the firm’s global operations when he worked for this company.
“The work was legal, but it was obviously well below the standards of what we were doing,” he acknowledged. I feel very bad about this, but there is a difference between this issue being a mistake and saying that we were the architect of a larger program. »
Pressed with questions, he said he was unaware at the time that McKinsey was involved in a contract to manufacture opioids and that, as the firm has 2,700 associates, he could not know everything.
“It doesn’t matter whether or not you have a bond of friendship with the prime minister, one thing you have in common with him is not to take responsibility for what happened under your watch,” s exclaimed Alberta Conservative MP Garnett Genuis.
100 million Canadians
The Bloc Québécois is more interested in the links between Dominic Barton, who co-founded the pressure group Century Initiative, and Canada’s objective of welcoming 500,000 newcomers per year starting in 2025. Century Initiative advocates the implementation public policies to increase Canada’s population to 100 million by 2100. Mr. Barton chaired the Advisory Council on Economic Growth at the request of former federal finance minister Bill Morneau.
“These 500,000 did not come from the Advisory Council. That’s more than the growth council said,” Mr Barton revealed, noting that the group was just making recommendations and it was up to the government to implement them or not.
As for the 81-year open contract awarded to McKinsey by the government, Mr. Barton admitted that he would not have done it as a manager. The contract was awarded after his departure.
He repeatedly asserted that he had never been involved in McKinsey’s contracts with the Canadian government, since, as the big boss, he did not work directly with customers. He also repeatedly pointed out that the firm was closing 3,000 contracts a day.
Dominic Barton led McKinsey until 2018. A year later, he was named Canada’s Ambassador to China, a position he held until 2021 with a mandate to work for the release of Canadian nationals Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, imprisoned by Beijing.
“It was the greatest honor of my life to do this job, but I didn’t volunteer to do it,” he said. It was then that he had his first interaction with Mr. Trudeau to find a way to restore communication with China.
Before the adjournment, the NDP presented a motion to expand the parliamentary inquiry to other consulting firms that have obtained federal government contracts such as Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG and Ernst & Young. It will be debated on Monday.