TRAN Committee Report

Supplementary Report of the Conservative Party of Canada

Conservative Members of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities would like to thank the witnesses who made themselves available to share their important perspectives and information with the Committee on the investigation into the role of McKinsey & Co in the creation and beginnings of the Canada Infrastructure Bank. As well, we would like to thank the analysts for their excellent work in compiling and synthesizing the wide-ranging witness testimony.

Conservatives would like to express their disappointment that certain key witnesses, when asked to appear before the Committee, initially declined to participate. Those with key knowledge about the McKinsey contracts – former and current executives from the Canada Infrastructure Bank, McKinsey, and former Liberal Government Cabinet ministers – either did not respond or repeatedly declined to appear before the Committee. This meant that Conservatives, with support from other Opposition Committee members, had to put forward a summons motion in order to compel testimony. This issue only served to underscore Conservatives’ longstanding concerns around lack of transparency at the CIB and the lack of accountability at the top – with the government ministers responsible.

Over the course of the last 9 years, we have seen the current government dramatically increase its reliance on external consultants across departments and agencies. When this study began in 2023, it was on the public record that the government had already awarded $22 billion dollars in contracts to outside consulting firms. That is an amount equalling $1,400 a year per Canadian household. The Auditor General has since then found that McKinsey & Co was awarded $209 million in contracts with 90 percent of the contracts awarded without following the appropriate guidelines. She specifically noted that for two contracts awarded by the Canada Infrastructure Bank, “no evaluation criteria were included in the request for bids or used in the evaluation of bids. No explanation was documented to support why McKinsey & Company was selected.”[1]

Evidence submitted to the Government Operations and Estimates Committee (OGGO), which was also investigating the government’s use of McKinsey consultants, included documents from the Canada Infrastructure Bank. These records revealed some of the internal contract negotiations and the specific access that McKinsey & Co had with CIB executives in its first few years. Because this evidence was not submitted to the Transport Committee, certain excerpts could not be included in the main report. Therefore, Conservatives wish to highlight in this supplementary report what those documents reveal.

Firstly, the records point to the close working relationship between McKinsey and the CIB in its initial stages. This even included looking to McKinsey for hiring recommendations, which prompted a suggestion that the CIB consider hiring a McKinsey manager (this is referenced on pg. 29 of the report).

Secondly, there is evidence of a significant conflict of interest – or, at the very least, the appearance of one – around Dominic Barton’s involvement with McKinsey while he was Ambassador to China. As the Committee’s report explains, Mr. Barton was the government-appointed Chair of the Minister’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth when he was the Global Managing Partner of McKinsey. That Council had recommended the creation of the CIB, which proceeded to award contracts to McKinsey when it was set up. A few years later, when Dominic Barton was no longer working for McKinsey but was serving as Canada’s Ambassador to China, he was invited to participate in a McKinsey-hosted workshop for the CIB. While Mr. Barton denied that he was aware of McKinsey involvement and instead described it as a call or “conversation” with the CIB, documents submitted to OGGO contradict Mr. Barton’s testimony. Emails indicate McKinsey staff had knowledge of Mr. Barton’s schedule, and a memo to the CIB, written on McKinsey letterhead, summarizes “two working sessions with leading thinkers in Canadian infrastructure to gather thoughts on the CIB’s mandate and potential strategic vectors.” The McKinsey memo states that the second session was with Dominic Barton and Mark Wiseman.

In conclusion, Conservatives wish to underscore that while we support most of the report’s recommendations that call for a reduction of the use of consultants and for more transparency and accountability at the CIB, Conservatives ultimately remain in agreement with the sole recommendation of the third report of the Committee – that the Canada Infrastructure Bank be abolished. After 7 years, the CIB has failed to deliver on its core mandate and promised value; it has spent more on salaries and bonuses than on infrastructure projects; it has made several investment decisions that call into question the ability of the CIB to make sound investments that result in built infrastructure serving the best interests of Canadian communities; and it has failed to meet the expected levels of transparency for a publicly funded bank.