McKinsey & Company: controversies here and elsewhere

The McKinsey firm has branches in more than 65 countries, and is often the subject of controversy. The newspaper identified some cases where the firm’s influence raised questions and triggered investigations.

• Read also: McKinsey & Company: our elected officials seduced despite a heavy past

• Read also: McKinsey firm: QS wants a parliamentary inquiry in Quebec

• Read also: The Caisse de depot is also infatuated with McKinsey

Trudeau Government

Photos d’archives, AFP

Dominic Barton, McKinsey’s global managing director from 2009 to 2018, in August 2021, in Dandong, China. Mr. Barton was, at that time, Canada’s Ambassador to China. He had been appointed to this position by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (inset).

Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government has awarded contracts worth more than $84 million to the consulting firm McKinsey since March 2021. That’s 30 times more than what was awarded by the Conservatives during the entire reign of Justin Trudeau. Stephen Harper, according to Radio-Canada and The Canadian Press. This is why the opposition parties in the Commons want to force a parliamentary inquiry into the contracts awarded by the federal government to McKinsey. In addition, a committee formed by Ottawa in 2016 and chaired by Dominic Barton, then global managing director of McKinsey, recommended increasing the thresholds for immigration to Canada. Mr. Barton is one of the co-founders of the Initiative of the Century, a pressure group that wants to increase the population of Canada to 100 million by 2100. Remember that Dominic Barton was, in 2019, appointed Canadian Ambassador to China by the Trudeau government. He held this position until 2021. His end of term was marked by the diplomatic crisis caused by the arrest, in Vancouver, of the number 2 of the Chinese giant Huawei, Meng Wanzhou.

Québec

Photo provided by the CIUSS de la Capitale-Nationale

A vaccination center in Quebec in April 2021. McKinsey played an important role in planning the immunization campaign against COVID-19.

McKinsey has been at the heart of managing the pandemic in Quebec. In the shadows, McKinsey played a central role in the vaccination campaign, revealed journalist Thomas Gerbet last September. The firm advised the Legault government on crucial decisions and on its communication strategy. McKinsey also offered solutions to remedy the shortage of personnel in CHSLDs and had access to tons of confidential information. McKinsey’s advice cost Quebec taxpayers $35,000 a day, from April to June 2020. In total, Quebec paid $1.7 million for McKinsey to help prepare its deconfinement plan, and $4.9 million. M$ to support it in the economic recovery plan.

France

Photo d’archives, AFP

This “Macron McKinsey” graffiti on this 2022 presidential election poster in France refers to allegations of violations of electoral laws against the strategy consulting giant.

In France, McKinsey was accused in March 2022 of not having paid corporation tax for ten years, between 2011 and 2020. Not long before, consulting firms, including McKinsey, were targeted by an investigation. about the role consultants played in the 2017 and 2022 French elections. These consulting firms have won billions of euros in public contracts since Emmanuel Macron came to power, POLITICO reported at the time. Investigators are also looking into allegations of improper campaign finance and the possibility that the work carried out by the consultants was undercharged, in violation of French electoral laws.

United States

Photo d’archives, AFP

A bottle of liquid oxycodone, a strong opioid. McKinsey was severely punished in the United States for its role in the opiate crisis.

In February 2021, McKinsey agreed to pay US authorities $573 million for contributing to the opiate crisis. By advising pharmaceutical giants, McKinsey was helping them sell more of these products, including OxyContin. Nearly half a million Americans are believed to have died from overdoses caused by prescribed or illegally sold opiates between 1999 and 2018. “If someone can explain to me the difference between McKinsey/Big Pharma, the opioid cartel and the organizations such as those of Pablo Escobar, I am listening to you,” a US congresswoman told a McKinsey executive during a hearing in the House of Representatives last April.

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