Anand says McKinsey contracts for defence department did not involve ‘state secrets’ – National | 24CA News
Defence Minister Anita Anand is dismissing opposition issues about hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in contracts between her division and McKinsey & Company, saying the corporate’s work was “not a matter of state secrets.”
Anand made the feedback on Monday whereas testifying to the House of Commons authorities operations committee, which is trying into the federal contracts awarded to McKinsey and different consulting corporations since 2011.
The Department of National Defence has awarded about $30 million in work to McKinsey via 15 contracts since 2011, Anand advised committee members. Most of that work handled enhancing the administration of human assets and knowledge, she added.
“All of the subject matters of the contracts were in relation to corporate improvement, improvements in the way in which the institutions function,” she stated. “This was not a matter of state secrets that were being provided.”
As an instance, Anand stated the army lately turned to McKinsey to assist with its culture-change efforts, which included organizing and reporting on consultations with hundreds of Canadian Armed Forces members throughout the nation.
The firm additionally labored with the Royal Canadian Navy to raised combine digital expertise into its long-term plans, the committee heard, and helped develop a long-term human-resources technique for the Canadian Joint Operations Command.
That command is chargeable for overseeing all Canadian army operations at residence and overseas, sparking Conservative issues about potential safety breaches.
The Tories famous that the corporate has beforehand labored with Russia and China, ties which have beforehand been raised within the U.S. resulting from McKinsey’s work with the Pentagon.
But Anand pushed again on such issues, saying the contracts associated to how the Defence Department and army work and didn’t put safety, privateness or confidentiality “in jeopardy in any way, shape or form.”
The minister and senior officers additionally reassured committee members that the corporate didn’t have any affect over the federal government’s current resolution to purchase the F-35 stealth fighter jet, or every other army procurement initiatives.
“We do have rules in place to make sure that these types of conflicts don’t occur,” stated Defence Department procurement chief Troy Crosby.
The committee launched its research of McKinsey’s contracts with the federal authorities following revelations the agency’s work for Ottawa has expanded quickly since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal authorities got here to energy in 2015.
Read extra:
‘I am not a friend’ of Trudeau, ex-McKinsey head Dominic Barton says amid contract probe
According to knowledge shared by Public Services and Procurement Canada, $116.8 million has been paid McKinsey since 2015.
Between March 2021 and the autumn of 2022, the contracts totalled not less than $62 million, in keeping with a doc lately tabled within the House of Commons in response to a query from a Conservative MP.
Outsourcing to such corporations has elevated throughout the federal government in recent times — a pattern that some researchers say erodes the skills of federal staff to hold out their work.
Anand advised members that she took her function as a steward of taxpayer {dollars} very severely, and that contractors are employed after they have particular abilities that aren’t out there throughout the division or to fill a selected function.
“I have no reason to believe that those contracts have been unethical,” the minister stated of her division’s contracts with McKinsey. “They have been executed in large measure, all except one of them.”
© 2023 The Canadian Press
