Overview: Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates—Study on the Federal Government Consulting Contracts Awarded to McKinsey & Company (March 6, 2023)

In the most recent fiscal year, 2021 to 2022 - excluding transfers to other Government Departments for work done for the Agency - the CBSA spent $134 million on training, information technology, telecommunications, and management consultants. In the previous year, 2020 to 2021 – again, excluding transfers to other Government Departments - the CBSA spent $129 million on training, information technology, telecommunications, and management consultants.

Since 2016 the CBSA has contracted with McKinsey & Company on three separate contracts (a fourth was ended before work began) at a combined value of $4.3 million.

The work initiated under the CBSA's contracts with McKinsey & Company since 2016 has been completed. There are no additional costs pending for any of the contracts entered into with McKinsey & Company by the CBSA.

The CBSA is engaged in revenue collection and client-facing services in a way that other Public Safety portfolio agencies are not, and so the CBSA sought external advice from a contractor with broad and international experience dealing with revenue generation and management, digital processing of financial and client records, and managing client service improvement.

Like a number of companies the CBSA contracts with, McKinsey & Company offers expertise that is not easily replicated with in-house resources. As a provider of specialized services in global trends and international standards and comparators, McKinsey & Company can utilize proprietary tools and data unavailable to in-house resources to supplement and inform decision-making.

Contracted resources are often utilized in situations in which work is required to be completed in a very short timeframe or for which the nature of the work is so specialized that in-house resources are not available. For the contract for Business Consulting/Change Management Services, the Agency chose to engage external resources because the scope and complexity of the undertaking benefited from the application of expertise that a company with global experience in digital transformation would bring. In the case of the contracts for Executive Transformation Services and for a Value Management Office, expertise in comparative analysis resultant from experience working with public and private entities internationally was required.

No, the Canada Border Services Agency was not directed to hire this company. Any procurement at the CBSA is based on fulfilling an identified business need, whether that be for goods or for services.

All contracts entered into with McKinsey & Company were the result of a procurement process, where a business need is identified and technical criteria are drafted against this business need, in order to evaluate bidders in a transparent and unbiased manner. Whenever the Agency identifies a need to procure goods or services, our business line experts will work with Agency or PSPC procurement specialists to develop technical criteria at the onset, to ensure that the resulting procurement process meets the identified need.

The CBSA's contracts with McKinsey & Company were awarded via competitive processes. In the case of the contracts for Business Consulting/Change Management Services and for Executive Transformation Services the Agency leveraged a Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) supply arrangement. For the contract for a Value Management Office, a competitive process, run by PSPC, was utilized.

The CBSA entered into a contract with McKinsey & Company on October 21, 2022 for services related to planned outcomes and benefits of the Canada Border Services Agency Assessment and Revenue Management (CARM) project. Timelines for completion of the project were extended at which point the Agency determined it would do the work in-house in the time available.

The work done by McKinsey & Company has informed some of the largest digital and organizational renewal efforts to date at the CBSA – the kind of work for which we haven't always had internal capacity or expertise.

Over time, CBSA has evolved from being part of a larger department into a stand-alone organization with a growing public policy role. In recent years, CBSA has been taking an increasingly service-oriented approach to its operations. That's what the CBSA Assessment and Revenue Management (CARM) project is about, and we have benefited from external services and expertise as we make this shift.

With rising demands and volumes at the border, and more complex threats, the CBSA began to invest in an innovative and transformational forward agenda. We have benefited from outside expertise to make sure the Agency is organized effectively with the policy and program capacity it needs as a large national organization operating in such a dynamic global environment.

The default position of the Government of Canada is to allow contractors to retain the rights to Intellectual Property generated under government contracts. This is designed to promote the commercialization of new ideas. Under the conditions of the contracts for Business Consulting/Change Management Services and for Executive Transformation Services, Canada owns all Intellectual Property produced as part of the Contractor's work because this work was required in order to support and inform future investments. Conversely, in the case of the contract for a Value Management Office, the contractor owns all Intellectual Property rights produced as part of its work.

The CBSA reviewed its records within a legislative framework that includes both the Privacy and Access to Information Act. Wherever possible and appropriate, the names of the McKinsey employees performing services under contract are being released consistent with the legislative framework. Under the legislative framework, personal information does not include "information about an individual who is or was performing services under contract for a government institution that relates to the services performed, including the terms of the contract, the name of the individual and the opinions or views of the individual given in the course of the performance of those services". Accordingly, names of McKinsey employees performing services under contract were released.

Not all McKinsey employees named in the documents were performing services under the contract, for example, administrative staff. CBSA released publicly available personal information about these employees and redacted personal information not in the public domain.

PSPC administers the Integrity Regime for the Government of Canada and as such any questions should be directed to them.