Treasury Board President Mona Fortier and Procurement Minister Helena Jaczek were tasked with reviewing the contracts awarded to McKinsey after media reports detailed the rapid growth in their value since the Liberals came to power in 2015.
But the audits did find some administrative requirements and procedures were not consistently followed, which reaffirms preliminary findings published in March.
“For example, some procurement files had insufficient or missing documentation and there were errors in the reporting of contracts according to the requirements for proactive publication,” the report said.
The contracts came under particular scrutiny because of the firm’s former global managing director’s link to the Liberal government, which raised questions about what influence McKinsey had on public policy.
Dominic Barton had served as the chair of an advisory council on economic growth for former finance minister Bill Morneau. He was also later appointed as Canada’s ambassador to China before resigning in late 2021.
In February, Barton was called to appear before a House of Commons committee looking into the contracts.
He insisted that he and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are not friends, and said he was sad to see continued insinuations about his relationship with the federal Liberals.
The government said McKinsey has received at least $116.8 million in federal contracts since 2015, which represents a small fraction of its overall contracts with consulting firms.
