Quebec – All light needs to be shed on the contracts the Legault government gave to the McKinsey firm, which chorus supports the four leaders of the opposition parties and calls for an independent public inquiry to be held.

In a press crowd Friday morning at the Chauveau constituency polling station, Éric Duhaime was the first to denounce the leading political role the international consultancy appears to have played in tackling the health crisis since 2020.

“There are too many unanswered questions, too many anomalies” in this dossier “that doesn’t smell good,” according to the leader of the Quebec Conservative Party (PCQ), who believes the Legault government has given the government too many powers consulting firm, was paying $35,000 a day and assigning her a role “that she should never have played.”

A poll conducted by Radio-Canada on Friday found that the McKinsey firm has played a central role in the government’s management of the pandemic, particularly during the vaccination campaign and in developing communication strategies.

In all, the company will have billed the government $6.6 million for the services rendered, with no calls for tender.

The report recalls that in May 2020 the Legault government rejected a request from opposition parties to release all documents produced by this company related to the pandemic. In August 2020, PQ MP Pascal Bérubé questioned Prime Minister François Legault in a parliamentary committee on the issue. The latter justified the government’s actions by saying that it was “important” to use such companies “so as not to reinvent the wheel”.

The firm has also received government approval not to disclose its other clients, a risk of potential conflicts of interest, Mr Duhaime argued.

The report also notes that several McKinsey working papers bore the Quebec government logo.

But the urgency of the situation justifies the use of this company, the outgoing Prime Minister François Legault reacted in a press crowd to Amos, who saw neither a problem nor anything “abnormal” in the chosen course of action. . On the contrary, he said McKinsey’s recommendations “helped save lives.”

He also argued that Quebec’s civil service did not have the expertise needed to deal with this type of crisis, so a private firm was hired.

For his part, his chief of staff, Martin Koskinen, denied that the firm played a key political role in managing the crisis. On Twitter, he acknowledged that the McKinsey firm had helped manage the situation by sharing “the best practices of the planet’s governments” with Quebec’s top civil service. “But to suggest that she pulled the strings of crisis management is false and even absurd,” he wrote.

Liberal leader Dominique Anglade saw a lack of “transparency” in the Legault government-McKinsey alliance, which she notes on several other files, considering the outgoing prime minister is credited for “not sharing information with anyone share”. She recalled that her party had long called for a public inquiry into the entire management of the pandemic, which would include McKinsey’s role.

Quebec Solidaire co-spokesman Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois called the contracts awarded “indecent,” suggesting the government has opted for some form of “privatization” to deal with the pandemic. He also called for an extensive commission of inquiry into the entire crisis management, including the contracts awarded to the private company.

Parti Québécois (PQ) leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon added. He also stressed that this story exposed the government’s “lack of transparency” in dealing with the health crisis, recalling that opposition parties, including his own, have been pushing for the creation of a committee of inquiry for months.