TRAN Committee Report

Supplementary opinion of the Bloc Québécois to the Report of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities (TRAN) on the role of McKinsey & Company in the creation and beginnings of the Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB).

The Bloc Québécois notes the extent to which a private firm such as McKinsey can exert influence on the direction of public policies for which the federal government is responsible. It is to such a degree that this private firm, by interfering in the government apparatus, drew up the outlines of the CIB and then placed its employees in the latter's organizational chart.

In a democracy, it is up to elected officials to decide on political directions and for the civil service to support their implementation. Not up to employees of private companies whose integration into the civil service has been imposed at great expense.

It is clear that the firm McKinsey and the CIB are in a blatant conflict of interest. Indeed, leaders of one or the other of these organizations play key roles at the head of government offices or at the head of private sector offices and are even found in the organizational chart of Canadian diplomacy.

Like revolving doors between high spheres of influence, these actors position themselves sometimes in a position of public influence, sometimes in a position of private influence. It goes without saying that the proximity between these stakeholders and decision-makers is worrying.

The federal government's incursions into areas of jurisdiction are legion. That the CIB has dealt with the firm McKinsey is not surprising and stems from this mania of the Canadian government. The Bloc Québécois believes that this desire for federal interference in Quebec's jurisdictions will only cease with the status of a sovereign state for the nation of Quebec.