Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Morneau, for coming. It's nice to see you here. I'm glad that your headset is working today.
Canadians are told that the Canada Infrastructure Bank is independent and at arm's length from the government, but right from the very beginning, it seems the government was quite hands on in directing the bank's management and investment decisions.
We heard from Mr. Sabia, who testified before this committee on Tuesday, May 16, 2023. He stated that after you appointed him as board chair in April 2020, you asked him to seek outside advisers for the Infrastructure Bank.
I'll quote Mr. Sabia:
He asked—
That was referring to you, Mr. Morneau.
—whether in working with the management of the bank and outside advisers we could accelerate the activity of the bank and, what was called at the time, the growth plan for the bank.
Yes, you are correct that in order to do that in the quickest and most economical way, the decision taken at the time was to use some of the people from McKinsey who had been involved in the initial thinking around the Infrastructure Bank, to draw on their accumulated knowledge of this so that we wouldn't have to start from ground zero and [we] would be able to move...quickly....
At that time, you, a Liberal minister, steered the Infrastructure Bank to giving a sole-source contract to high-priced McKinsey consultants.
Would you agree that this was inappropriate for you, as a minister of the government, to instruct the Crown corporation about hiring outside consultants?