Controversial American consulting firm McKinsey & Company is extremely popular in Quebec’s ministries and agencies. The Caisse de Depot et Placement du Québec paid him more than $6.5 million over three years, it was learned The newspaper.
In 2020 alone, the year the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, the Caisse de dépôt paid nearly $3.4 million for McKinsey’s services, the institution said in response to a request under the law for access to documents of public authorities.
However, the Caisse, which McKinsey has used “for several years”, refused to disclose the mandates entrusted to the powerful private firm.
“The Caisse has solid, very diverse expertise in several areas,” assured Maxime Chagnon, a spokesman for the journal.
“When specific or complementary expertise is required to support a mandate, we sometimes turn to consultants,” he adds laconically.
In 2021, the Caisse paid just over $1.1 million to McKinsey. In 2019, the total had risen to almost $2.1 million.
The Caisse has special ties with McKinsey: two of its officers, Maxime Aucoin and Alexandre Châteauneuf, previously worked there. In addition, the institution regularly participates in publications that can be read on the law firm’s website.
vaccination campaign
McKinsey, which has an office in Montreal, has been talked about a lot this year. In September, Radio-Canada revealed that the Legault government had entrusted him with much of the decision-making process surrounding the COVID vaccination campaign, for a fee of $1.7 million.
Additionally, the Department of Commerce, led by Pierre Fitzgibbon, hired the company last year to advise on its post-pandemic recovery — a mandate that could cost taxpayers as much as $4.9 million.
However, McKinsey’s largest public customer in the province is Hydro-Quebec. Since 2016, the state-owned company has awarded no fewer than 27 contracts totaling $38 million, Radio-Canada found in October.
opioids and dictators
In the United States, McKinsey has found itself in the hot seat for advising drug companies that contributed to the opioid crisis. Last year, the company agreed to pay $573 million to 47 states and the District of Columbia in connection with its role in the outbreak.
Earlier this fall, two New York Times investigative reporters, Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe, published a scathing book about McKinsey. In When McKinsey Comes to Town they report in particular on the sulfur work that McKinsey carried out for tobacco companies and totalitarian states such as China and Russia.
Public procurement in Quebec at McKinsey
- Executive Council Ministry (Pandemic) $1.7M
- Ministry of Economy (Pandemic) $4.9M
- Investissement Québec (battery sector) $495,000
- Hydro Quebec (since 2016) $38 million
- Caisse de depot et Placement du Quebec (2019 to 2021) $6.6M