The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - The Blueprint： Millions extra in the McKinsey scandal

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprints. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your

00:00:12.700 host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton, with new content for you

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00:00:40.380 Spotify, you name it, it is out there for your listening and doing pleasure. We have a great

00:00:45.780 show lined up for you today. I know we say that every single week, but there's been a lot of

00:00:49.640 developments going on with liberal ethics violations. Specifically, this just kind of broke last week,

00:00:55.660 and I know it's not really in the news cycle because the House of Commons isn't sitting right

00:00:59.580 now, but this contractor, this contracting firm, McKinsey, awarded more than $100 million,

00:01:06.840 $100 million since 2015. Half of that $100 million was sole source, meaning they didn't have to go up

00:01:14.520 for competition or even compete with other firms. They got a contract, and that is significant because

00:01:20.680 that is a massive growth in the use of private sector consultants, even compared to the Harper

00:01:27.440 government. So to come on and talk to us about that, we brought on Stephanie Cusey, the Member of

00:01:32.480 Parliament for Calgary Mindeport. She's also the Treasury Board critic. There she is. She's been on

00:01:36.480 the show before. Appreciate her coming back. It's been too long since we've had you on the show.

00:01:42.860 Sadly, we have to bring you on and talk about this absolute mess that's going on. Well,

00:01:47.580 we have a whole bunch of mess, but this latest one. No, you're right, Jamie. Well, first of all,

00:01:52.680 it's a pleasure to be here on the Blueprint. Thank you so much for having me, and thank you very much

00:01:57.560 for providing this forum, not only for our caucus, but for conservatives from coast to coast to coast.

00:02:03.520 It's always a pleasure and always a pleasure to see you. Unfortunately, whenever I am here,

00:02:09.300 it seems we are talking about something that the Liberal government has done again, and you're

00:02:14.820 absolutely correct. We find ourselves here on the brink of what is yet another scandal after scandal

00:02:22.340 after scandal after scandal. I'm starting to wonder, Jamie, if Shane is dead. Yet here we are on the brink

00:02:27.860 of another scandal with McKinsey & Co., and it's a very exciting week for us because we have indeed

00:02:35.160 called a meeting, a 1064, an emergency meeting that is taking place tomorrow, Wednesday, January 18th,

00:02:43.440 where we will hopefully pass a motion in an effort to really study and evaluate the extent of McKinsey's

00:02:53.020 involvement in this Liberal government. Jamie, I think this is going to be huge. I think we're going

00:02:58.540 to see this reach into a lot of different departments. It's wrong on so many levels that

00:03:04.800 we can unpack here, their involvement, and I just think it's really great that you are at the front

00:03:11.320 of this recognizing how significant this is for the Liberal government, because as I said, I really

00:03:17.600 think we will see that the tentacles of McKinsey really have reached into a number of departments,

00:03:23.580 and again, that this is wrong on so many levels. So let's talk about why this happened. So McKinsey,

00:03:30.900 one of their former heads at one time was Dominic Parton, a good friend of the Liberals. He then became

00:03:36.700 Canada's ambassador to China. He was there in that position for about two years, let go because some

00:03:42.320 have said he got too cozy with the Chinese government. Now you have headlines in the National

00:03:48.320 Post out yesterday talking about whether or not McKinsey is a shadow government that's

00:03:53.340 secretly runs Canada, and they have operations in 60 countries. There are 30,000 employees,

00:04:00.240 give or take, all over the world, but they've also had their problems. I'll just go through a few,

00:04:05.020 Stephanie, and we can elaborate on that. So McKinsey is currently the subject of a criminal

00:04:10.140 probe in France on charges. They allegedly violated French campaign laws. In September,

00:04:15.300 they were hit with criminal charges in South Africa for a corruption scandal. They got into trouble

00:04:22.120 in Saudi Arabia because they developed a report that was used in the targeting and arrest of

00:04:27.620 dissidents. But this one, this next one, there's many, but this one kind of caught my eye too.

00:04:32.180 In February, 2021, McKinsey & Co. inked a $600 million settlement with U.S. authorities over charges

00:04:38.580 that the firm helped design an aggressive marketing strategy for Oxycontin. Now, of course,

00:04:43.720 we all know that's a drug whose over-prescription spawned the current opioid crisis. And it says

00:04:50.740 here in this article here in the Globe and Mail that I'm quoting now, they were part of a machine

00:04:54.440 that disrupted and in fact destroyed the lives and families in America. This is basically technocrats

00:05:01.860 running the show.

00:05:04.080 And that's exactly it. And you've really touched on a lot of the levels of wrong that I was talking

00:05:10.360 about. You're right. The activities of this company have, their scruples are really questionable

00:05:17.220 to say the least on so many levels. And this is something I hope that we will get into the

00:05:22.140 Government Operations Committee as well, is testimony from where they have been found in conflicts in

00:05:31.400 other countries. You mentioned France, you mentioned the United States, just to name a couple.

00:05:36.060 So this is something that is not immune only to Canada, that it is, as you said, reaches across

00:05:43.780 the globe. And you gave a lot of good examples of where they have done things which are not only

00:05:49.500 questionably ethically, but in fact, potentially, and even found criminal. So, you know, that's

00:05:56.080 certainly the first thing. And you laid out the second other major concern as well, which is that

00:06:00.200 do we have a government, which was supposedly elected by the people, actually running things?

00:06:06.960 Or is this being run by an outside consulting firm with their own interests, with their own private

00:06:13.540 interests that are only there as a result of their relationships with the highest levels of government

00:06:20.680 in this country? And that's really what I think we hope to show within the study, is that this

00:06:27.820 relationship exists at the very top level. And I think we've seen that the prime minister and his

00:06:33.700 cabinet are not immune from poor ethics, that they have consistently been found guilty by the ethics

00:06:42.460 commissioner. They think that they can say they're sorry and move on with things, but they really have

00:06:47.780 no sense of accountability and what the absence of ethical actions means not only for their positions,

00:06:55.420 but for Canadians as well. So we want to show that this relationship exists right at the top,

00:07:02.300 and it has poisoned every corner of government, Jamie. So we're going to start it at the government

00:07:09.240 operations committee. But I think that we have seen implications of departments such as immigration,

00:07:15.300 we saw Dominique Barton was specifically involved in that john McCallum, the former immigration minister was

00:07:23.380 involved with this Dominique, I'm sure you know, went on to go and run the century organization,

00:07:29.060 which is responsible for getting 100 Canada's population to 100 million within a specific time

00:07:36.020 frame through immigration. So again, that shows you that outsiders are setting policy for this government,

00:07:42.580 we're going to see it go to defense, we see that McKinsey was brought into the Department of Defense in an

00:07:49.300 effort to sort of help guide the policies at the most executive levels training at the executive

00:07:55.700 levels. I mean, that's, that's their fingers in there as well, Jamie, we're seeing it also in health,

00:08:01.380 which you mentioned, and I'm very interested to see where this goes, because our leader has had a

00:08:07.940 narrative, which has been challenged by mainstream media, which has been challenged by I would go so far to

00:08:15.620 say as the left. And I really think that the findings within the United States really helps to build our

00:08:22.580 leaders position regarding the opioid crisis. So we essentially have a shadow government and we've seen

00:08:29.300 this as well as we've seen numbers ballooning in the public service. But then also this this incredible

00:08:35.540 amount of money that's been spent on consulting firms, you know, now we know who who's running the show,

00:08:41.300 and we really hope to show that in government operations. So it's wrong from the ethical

00:08:45.940 standpoint of McKinsey working in tandem with the Trudeau government. And it's also wrong in that

00:08:52.260 the government isn't doing what it was elected to do, which is essentially determine policy based

00:08:57.620 upon their platform for Canadians, they're having a third party enter and set their policy based upon

00:09:05.060 their own private interests, which are scrupulous, or which are, are very, are not great.

00:09:11.460 So part of this deal, when you have consultants, especially a company like this, a massive corporation

00:09:18.500 like this, with its tentacles everywhere, trying to affect government policy, trying to basically take

00:09:24.660 their will and impose it upon the people. This is this is what happens big government gets bigger,

00:09:31.300 it starts to use those well lobbied and well lawyered up to make policy and get those lucrative

00:09:37.060 government contracts. At the same time, then you stifle competition. So the little person trying to

00:09:42.500 start their business is facing all kinds of barriers to competition, it makes that harder to get into the

00:09:49.860 competitive market. And in terms of the government of those big corporations, well, you just now have to

00:09:55.540 picture make your pitch to government, right? It's it's so much easier when you have all these super smart

00:10:00.740 people with no real experience in the field, such as this consulting firm based on what I've been

00:10:06.500 reading about. They're trying to basically pin the it's like, it's like the like the people of Canada

00:10:12.660 are just pieces on the chessboard, right? These technocrats can move people around and tell them 1.00

00:10:17.860 what to do. And, you know, keep working, pay your taxes, don't ask questions, just shut up and keep going.

00:10:23.300 And we'll just take it from here. But as we can see, they're breaking laws, they're breaking

00:10:29.140 ethical boundaries, and costing taxpayers at the same time.

00:10:33.540 Yeah, and that's a really good point you make about the waste. Because, you know, we're seeing

00:10:39.380 this with the Phoenix pay system. We've seen this in a number of areas where the government, and you

00:10:47.540 know, you talk about the little companies, but I'd also like to take a moment, Jamie, and talk about

00:10:52.900 the public service, even they feel like they have no agency, even they feel like they have these

00:10:58.740 consulting firms coming in and telling them what to do, they feel completely demoralized, they feel

00:11:06.580 without direction, because direction is based on an external third party. But yes, like, you're

00:11:14.340 absolutely correct that Canadians are pieces on a chessboard. And as I said, this is what we really 0.95

00:11:21.940 hope to accomplish in this study is just show how high up this rot is, and how throughout the entire

00:11:31.700 government, this rot is, and it all starts tomorrow. And I think it will be very interesting

00:11:37.860 to see how it unfolds, to see what we find, and to see the extent that they, that they are implicated.

00:11:45.540 Because I am sure that it is at the highest levels, and the results have significant impacts on

00:11:53.620 Canadians. Significant, there is just, there's no doubt about it. Because if we look at something like, like,

00:12:01.700 immigration, these targets that the Liberal government has, has set for themselves, well,

00:12:08.020 that's it, have they set them for themselves? Or do they have this external company that came in and

00:12:13.700 decided that, that these were the targets based upon even perhaps other external factors? We don't know.

00:12:21.460 But the result is, public servants have to, without agency, make an attempt to implement

00:12:28.900 that without really having any, any power themselves. They feel, we see that even this

00:12:34.660 week with the return to work mandate, they feel misguided, they feel as though the directive wasn't

00:12:40.740 clear. This is a common theme in the Treasury Board amongst public service employees, that they,

00:12:46.420 they just feel as though they were not sure what their objectives are, the directives are, their,

00:12:52.260 their organizational structures don't reflect the work that has to be done, their workspaces don't

00:12:58.020 reflect the work that has to be done. And, and that a lot of that could possibly be, because again,

00:13:04.980 it's not really the government that's in charge, not, not the, the bureaucrats, and not even the ministers.

00:13:12.900 It's a few people at the highest level of this country in the prime minister's office with,

00:13:18.740 with evil partnerships that are making deals and implementing those deals throughout all of

00:13:25.540 government with horrific consequences for Canadians, for public servants, but as you've indicated with

00:13:32.980 those anecdotes at the beginning of the hour throughout, throughout the world. And why hasn't our,

00:13:38.900 our government or why hasn't our government learned from these examples from throughout the world or

00:13:44.340 held the, the prime minister to account in his relationships? But as I said, we're going to find

00:13:49.860 out a lot here. And I think it's, we are not even at the tip of the iceberg and it all starts tomorrow,

00:13:54.580 Jamie. Let's unpack a bit about what you said. I think that holds true. The liberal party right now has,

00:14:01.300 what do they have 130 some odd MPs, probably a little bit more, maybe 140. You have thousands,

00:14:09.300 tens of thousands of bureaucrats within the public service. And that has been growing every single

00:14:13.940 year since 2015, when the Trudeau liberals took power. And now you have the outside use of consulting

00:14:20.180 firms, but you're right. It's not exactly the MPs themselves. It's not exactly the, the, the words of the

00:14:28.500 citizens, the Canadians that are dealing with a whole bunch of issues. It is a small group of people

00:14:33.460 within the prime minister's office, making all these decisions. It, that is really scary when you think

00:14:39.300 about it. Just a very tiny group of centralized power hungry people. I can't, they're not bureaucrats. They're just

00:14:48.660 political staffers making these decisions for the lives of countless of Canadians who are dealing with

00:14:54.020 high inflation, a housing crisis, healthcare is a mess. The list goes on and on and on. And, and, and

00:15:02.980 these consultants just come in and have the grand plan. Well, it's the central planning, right? We,

00:15:08.260 once the planners plan, they just ask for more time when the plans fail, right? They, they keep more

00:15:13.620 time, more patients, more money. We'll figure it out. You just sit back and I don't care if you're

00:15:17.860 freezing, you're starving, doesn't matter. We'll figure it out in time, but it never gets figured out.

00:15:22.020 It never gets figured out. And, and that's another thing that we have heard is that they're brought

00:15:29.540 in, but they never come to any resolution. And again, the Phoenix pay system is a perfect example

00:15:36.020 of that. And we've also had the prime minister come out and say, oh, you know, his, his ministers

00:15:41.460 are on it. So I really hope his ministers are willing to come and testify as committee, because that's

00:15:47.300 certainly one of the places that we'll be starting both, uh, minister Fortier and minister,

00:15:52.100 um, Dracic. Now, mind you, these problems date back to way before then, but I mean,

00:15:57.860 we have to start somewhere. So I don't even know, uh, what they're going to come with,

00:16:02.340 but we have to start somewhere. And the other thing I'm worried about, Jamie is seeing another, 1.00

00:16:08.260 um, I'm trying to even think of like a acceptable word. I can say on the air task force or study,

00:16:15.460 right? I mean, look at what happened when, uh, Ogo did the study of the, um, whistleblower

00:16:23.540 legislation seven years ago, the Trudeau government never implemented it. So a private members bill

00:16:30.260 comes forward, uh, suggesting that this, some of the recommendations from the Ogo study on whistleblower

00:16:36.420 legislation is implemented. Oh, lo and behold, the liberals and Mona Fortier decide that they're

00:16:43.460 putting together a task force to evaluate a whistleblower legislation and what has to be done.

00:16:50.420 And this is what the liberals do is they put together a task force where we see nothing come

00:16:56.180 out of it. We, we see a study put together where even if the study has conclusions, none of the

00:17:01.460 conclusions are, uh, are, are implemented. So that's the other thing I'm really worried about,

00:17:07.460 Jamie, is that, um, we're going to see, uh, Minister Fortier administer jazz it come, come out of nowhere.

00:17:13.140 The first week that we go back to the house and say, Oh, good news. There's no need for government

00:17:18.260 operations to investigate this. We've put together a task force. Um, and that's not going to fly.

00:17:24.420 That's not going to fly with me. And that's not going to fly with our NDP and block counterparts.

00:17:29.380 And I'll, I'll, I think that's a really important thing to add here, Jamie, is that this isn't just

00:17:34.660 us, the conservative party of Canada and the conservative caucus that sees the rot and the

00:17:40.500 spread and the, um, the, the, the, the horrific ethics of this company. It's the other opposition,

00:17:47.380 uh, parties as well. So we are unified in wanting to see this addressed because all of us recognize

00:17:56.340 that one, it is rotten and two, it is throughout, uh, government, but I'm telling you, Jamie,

00:18:03.380 um, even between the time that we decided to call the 1064 and the time that the letter was delivered

00:18:09.780 to the clerk, I was sitting there holding my breath, waiting for the announcement of a study,

00:18:14.580 uh, or, or a task force. So, you know, my point is they will do everything they can in an effort to,

00:18:22.020 uh, cover this up another cover up. How many cover ups have we seen? They will do everything

00:18:26.580 they can in an effort to, uh, deflect this. And we've seen this, um, continuously through,

00:18:32.500 throughout the, the government's time in government, but even in the fall with, uh, IRGC, once again,

00:18:39.540 uh, with the arrive can up, just cover up, cover up marrying again, she's still there, uh, as a minister,

00:18:45.780 as I said, I can't help but what her shame is dead. Um, but, uh, my point is that we are not

00:18:51.780 going to let them get away with this because there have to be answers for Canadians as to 0.99

00:18:59.380 not only where their tax dollars are going in this time of high inflation, in this time of cost of

00:19:05.060 living increases, where food is at a 40%, uh, increase. Um, but also because who is pulling

00:19:12.980 the strings, who's pulling the strings, Jamie, we want to get to the bottom of it.

00:19:16.660 Well, let's get to the bottom of it. Let's just turn the channel a bit. Let's pretend that

00:19:21.540 it was the conservative government that did this. And then we will have the media lighting

00:19:26.660 their hair on fire. We will having the, the liberals having panic attacks on the floor.

00:19:31.460 Like let's, let's just have that same amount of enthusiasm from, from these outside players

00:19:37.860 just to get to the bottom of it, because I think this goes pretty deep in the fact that

00:19:42.180 we have potentially outside groups and we we've suspected that all along and let's not get,

00:19:47.460 let's not forget that there has been many examples of outside organizations,

00:19:52.260 steering governments, not just in Canada, but across the world. And in here we're having

00:19:56.820 almost outright proof that this is happening.

00:20:00.260 No, you're absolutely correct. And I will say, I'm sure you're aware there's been a lot,

00:20:05.380 and I mean, a lot of media interest and I'll add not only in McKinsey and Co's involvement in

00:20:12.500 government. Um, but consultancy across government, we saw that Paul Wells, um, article. I mean, but

00:20:19.060 my goodness, when you have journalists who are established within the Canadian media, like Fife

00:20:25.300 coming out and saying like, um, this group is evil. These two, the prime minister and this company are,

00:20:31.860 aren't bent together. Like it's time for the media to listen. Um, it is time like Canadians 0.96

00:20:39.060 cannot deny this and the liberals, they will try, but they will have a very hard time spinning this.

00:20:46.260 So you raise another good point. Uh, as I said, up to this point, we're seeing, I'm seeing one,

00:20:51.540 two stories generated a day from all of the major outlets, both French and English, uh, media,

00:20:58.900 but we'll see where they go with this. Cause I think that they are, um, very interested to sort of see

00:21:05.700 how this unfolds. And I think how this unfolds will, uh, have a lot to do with, um, the block

00:21:14.740 and the NDP and, and us sort of being on the same page, working towards what should be the common

00:21:21.780 objective of transparency for Canadians, uh, with their government. Um, but then also how well the

00:21:29.380 liberals are, are able to deflect cause you know, the prime minister is called the Teflon prime minister

00:21:35.620 for a good reason. I mean, we think of how many scandals is he's at three violations from the

00:21:42.580 ethics commissioner. Now he's still there. How many ministers yet are our colleague Brad

00:21:47.460 Vist just did a fantastic, um, video on, on all the violations. And then it's, they're still there.

00:21:54.820 They don't, they don't go anywhere coming, coming out of the emergencies act review. Mendicino is still

00:22:00.660 there. Bill Blair is still there. Like I said, I really, I wonder if Shane is dead because, um,

00:22:07.300 what, what this government has done, if we would have attempted to pull in the years that we were in

00:22:13.780 power there, there would not be the same tolerance or measure, not from, uh, I think the media, uh, not from

00:22:23.300 that I, I, I'm not even sure what the Canadian public, uh, isn't aware of, or, um, doesn't have

00:22:32.020 time to the information that they don't have to see that, uh, that, that this is wrong, but, uh, it

00:22:38.980 doesn't mean that we're going to give up and it doesn't mean that we're not going to keep trying to

00:22:43.780 get, um, to the bottom of this because, you know, as I said at the beginning of the hour, sadly, this is

00:22:49.220 just another example of, of yet another scandal and another place where the government had the

00:22:57.540 option to act ethically, where the prime minister had the option, um, to not go with his good buddies,

00:23:05.380 but he just, he can't stop himself, Jamie. He can't stop himself. And he went and built these relation,

00:23:12.420 not only built these relationships, acted on these relationships and worse than that,

00:23:17.860 forced his top people to permeate them throughout government.

00:23:22.020 All right. We're sadly out of time. So many more questions. You have your emergency meeting tomorrow.

00:23:27.620 We'll see what comes out of that. Hopefully we, we get some momentum here in terms of getting to the

00:23:32.980 bottom of things and perhaps follow up on next week's show as to what exactly happened and kind of

00:23:37.780 update people, uh, kind of, uh, you know, the play by play of it all. Um, Stephanie, as you know,

00:23:43.300 the guests got the last word, feel free to, free to take it from here. Thank you, Jamie. I just,

00:23:50.260 I want to really, uh, I want Canadians to know just, um, McKinsey and co do your homework on them. Look into

00:23:59.220 some of the anecdotes that, uh, Jamie mentioned at the top of the hour and keep an eye on this

00:24:07.540 because as I said, the rock is at the top and it has spread throughout Denmark.

00:24:14.100 All right. Stephanie Cusey, member of parliament, Calgary,

00:24:16.260 vendor portal to the treasury board. Thank you very much. Good luck in your meeting

00:24:20.100 to you and your team, pushing this forward and getting to the bottom of how deep these

00:24:24.340 tentacles of McKinsey and co seem to run in our Canadian governments. And we appreciate your time

00:24:29.860 as well. Thank you very much for, for joining us today. As mentioned off the top, we have new content

00:24:34.340 for you every single Tuesday, 1 30 PM Eastern time. We ask that you like, comment, subscribe,

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00:24:50.180 We remind you that it's low taxes, less government, more freedom. That is the blueprint.

The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - January 17, 2023

The Blueprint： Millions extra in the McKinsey scandal

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