Who s really got Ottawa s ear?
Paid consultants are everywhere in Ottawa. This so-called shadow public service offers expert analysis at a pretty penny and never has to worry about pesky accountability (Photo illustration by Liz Sullivan and Drew Maynard)
Last May, in what we now know was merely the opening chapter of the pandemic, Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) posted one of the high-level help wanted ads that regularly go up on the federal government’s procurement website. ISED was seeking someone to analyze “key strategic industrial sectors,” model the impacts of COVID-19 for Canadian industry and “spark ‘big ideas.’ ” The “big ideas” bit sat perkily inside its own quotes throughout the tender documents.