(Ottawa) More than 8,000 contracts totaling $567 million have been awarded to consultants by the Department of Foreign Affairs over the past five years. This is what reveals an audit carried out in the wake of the controversy over the use of the services of the firm McKinsey. Contracts awarded externally have been scrutinized by elected officials since the financial fiasco ofArriveCAN.
“I just want to clarify that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not issued any contract to McKinsey,” said Daniel Pilon, director general of National Premises Planning in the ministry’s Procurement and Asset Management division.
He was one of three officials who faced a barrage of questions from elected officials Wednesday at the House of Commons government operations committee.
“On the other hand, we use expert consultants and we issue contracts with consultants, it is part of our regular contractual transactions,” he added. Often, it is for the need for expertise in very complicated, complex matters in our global domains. »
The value of these 8,000 contracts reaches 567 million dollars over five years, therefore around 110 million per year while the annual budget of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs exceeds 9 billion. The ministry has a total of 170 missions abroad.
The audit aimed to determine that contracts awarded to consultants comply with the rules. A statistical sample of 100 contracts out of the 8,000 concluded between April 2018 and June 2023 was selected at random. Of these, 19 were not fully compliant with the Public Financial Management Act.
For example, a department employee who also offered mentoring services outside of her regular duties herself signed the contract for less than $5,000 from which she benefited financially.
“Isn’t this a conflict of interest? “, asked Conservative MP Kelly Block, referring to David Yeo, this former employee of the Department of National Defense who worked both as a civil servant and as a consultant with his company Dalian. He had not declared his conflict of interest to his employer.
“According to the rules, this employee should not have signed the contract because she benefited from it,” admitted Shirley Carruthers, assistant deputy minister and chief financial officer of the department. “There was no bad intention, but rather an administrative error. »
The deputy minister was not able to specify how many employees are in a conflict of interest situation at Foreign Affairs.
“It’s problematic that we can’t turn internally,” argued Bloc MP Andréanne Larouche.
“In general, the ministry uses consultants for situations where there are not enough resources,” said Ms.me Carruthers. She gave the example of information technology. “From time to time we lack the resources to implement the new systems or to do the really new things in the field,” she explained.
The other reason is in the context of short-term projects. “It would not make sense from a value for money perspective to hire full-time staff to do this work. »
The audit does not specify how many contracts were awarded to GC Strategies, Dalian or Coradix, three companies linked to the ArriveCAN application whose significant cost overruns made headlines.
Interpretation problems disrupt the committee
Most of the chairs were empty around the table of the government operations committee on Wednesday with the exception of the three witnesses who had taken the trouble to come around to answer questions from elected officials in person, from the chair of the committee, from the clerk and from the support staff. The other elected officials all connected remotely, which gave the interpreters a hard time. The committee had to be interrupted on numerous occasions because the poor quality of the internet connection of some MPs had an impact on the sound quality. Congresswoman Bonita Zarrillo’s dog was even heard barking as she tried to ask her questions. Interpreters have the right to refuse when a risk to their hearing health is present. A recent decision under the Labor Code recognized the danger posed to hearing by exposure to feedback [retour de son]. Parliamentary work then barely resumed after a week in the constituency following the implementation of mitigation measures by the House of Commons. The fact remains that the hybrid parliament brings its share of challenges for these shadow workers.