Government Operations committee  I think there are a lot of rules, and at times they can be complicated. There was a recent announcement by the Treasury Board about adding certain certifications around procurement processes, and I appreciate that additional layer that was added. It wasn't about adding a rule but about reminding people to certify that they had done certain things in the rules.

Government Operations committee  That's a question I can't answer. I haven't done a survey to find out how many public servants previously worked at McKinsey.

Government Operations committee  I don't know who could determine that. Treasury Board could probably figure it out. I refer you to one of our findings. That's why declaring conflicts of interest is important during a procurement process.

Government Operations committee  That is why I recommended that a conflict of interest declaration be required at the time of a procurement.

Government Operations committee  Yes, I do from time to time. I think it really depends on the purpose of the contract. For example, in this case, we're talking about contracts that were for benchmarking, or to support a transformation. Sometimes it was to obtain professional advice. So it's difficult to assess.

Government Operations committee  No, our conclusion was that there was frequent disregard for the rules across nine departments and agencies and 10 Crown corporations spread out over the 12-year period. There isn't one year that sticks out more than others except near the end, when the national master standing offer was used for almost 19 contracts.

Government Operations committee  I mean, it's a tough one. There are 97 contracts, and I can tell you that almost each contract has a unique story with it. When we looked at how frequently rules were not being followed, it didn't matter whether it was a Crown, a department or agency. It's important to note that the Crown corporations have their own rules and they don't usually follow the Treasury Board rules, but there was still a frequent disregard for not following them.

Government Operations committee  I think that, over time, whenever there's an audit done, whether it be by an internal audit department, the comptroller general's, the procurement ombudsman's or my office, the tendency is to add more rules. I think here the case is not that there were rules missing—except for conflict of interest, which is why we issued one there—but that the rules just need to be followed.

Government Operations committee  I'm going to turn to Nicholas, and he can provide that to you.

Government Operations committee  That's a difficult question for me to answer. I'm not sure in what capacity he was providing advice as the chair of that committee or what his requirements were. I, unfortunately, can't offer up an opinion on that.

Government Operations committee  Again, I'm sorry. I don't know much about what that committee was doing, so it would be inappropriate for me to provide thoughts or opinions on it.

Government Operations committee  In the case of the four contracts that you're referring to, there were two where there was a change in strategy. While the federal government is able to change its procurement approaches as it goes about, I would have expected to see a justification on file as to why they made such a switch, and then, because two contracts were awarded in a non-competitive way, clear documentation as to why McKinsey would have been the only bidder or what exception was being used from the procurement rules to award a contract non-competitively.

Government Operations committee  I want to draw a distinction between what we saw with ArriveCAN and what we're seeing here. With regard to ArriveCAN, we clearly saw that GC Strategies was involved in setting the selection criteria. We did not see that in the McKinsey contracts. At times, we saw, when there were competitive bids run, that the selection criteria weren't always used, but not that McKinsey had been involved in setting the selection criteria.

Government Operations committee  When it comes to competitive contracts, what we found is that often, about more than one-third of the time, the bid evaluation didn't have selection criteria that were clearly outlined, or when there were selection criteria they weren't used. It's clear in the rules that you need to set out these criteria, and then you need to have a good evaluation grid and a committee put together.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, thank you for this opportunity to discuss our report on professional services contracts, which was tabled in Parliament last week. I want to begin by acknowledging that we are gathered on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people. Joining me today are Nicholas Swales, the principal who was responsible for the audit; Steven Mariani, the director who led the audit team; and Andrew Hayes, deputy auditor general.