Before Barton Leads Invest in Canada, Publish the McKinsey Accountability Screen

Carney says Invest in Canada will help unlock a trillion-dollar agenda. After the McKinsey contracting record, Dominic Barton’s appointment needs visible conflict screens, recusal rules and deliverables — not another trust-me handshake.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has put Dominic Barton at the top of Invest in Canada’s board just as Ottawa is selling Canadians on a trillion-dollar investment agenda. That is not a routine appointment. It is a governance test.

The PMO announced on August 31 that Barton will serve a three-year term as part-time chair, while Gurinder Grewal becomes full-time CEO for five years. The same release says Invest in Canada is central to Carney’s plan to catalyse $1 trillion in total investment over five years, including in energy, critical minerals, artificial intelligence, infrastructure and major projects.

Barton’s résumé is exactly why the public standard must be higher. PMO’s own biography says he spent more than 30 years at McKinsey & Company, including nine years as global managing partner, chaired the Trudeau government’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth, and served as Canada’s ambassador to China from 2019 to 2021. Experience can be useful. Insider access without sunlight is dangerous.

The McKinsey context cannot be waved away. The Auditor General’s 2024 review examined 97 McKinsey contracts across federal organizations and found frequent disregard for procurement policies and guidance. About 70 per cent of those contracts were non-competitive. Of the 28 competitive contracts reviewed, 10 lacked enough documentation to support choosing McKinsey. In several cases, federal files did not provide enough evidence to show the contracts delivered value for money.

That does not prove Barton did anything wrong. It does prove that a former McKinsey global chief should not be handed a strategic federal investment post on trust-me politics. Canadians need a written accountability screen before the agency he chairs helps shape access to investors, public incentives, fast-tracked projects and possible subsidy pipelines.

Canadian Press reporting carried by Global News noted the appointment landed roughly two weeks before Carney’s first investment summit in Toronto, and that outgoing CEO Laurel Broten left before the usual five-year term with no explanation provided Monday. If this is a clean strategic reset, publish the transition records. If it is a new insider-driven investment architecture, Canadians deserve to know before the cheques, guarantees or tax credits start moving.

The conservative accountability standard is straightforward: publish the appointment criteria, conflict-of-interest declarations, recusal list, meeting logs, files touching McKinsey alumni or clients, China-exposure screening rules, deliverables for Invest in Canada, CEO-transition documents, and any federal supports attached to projects Barton helps promote or review.

Carney’s government says it wants investment. Fine. But investment policy is not a private club. When the same political class that presided over consulting-contract failures now gives a former McKinsey boss a federal investment chair, taxpayers should not be asked for blind faith. They should get receipts first.