Oops, Yet Another 'Misunderstanding' out of Justin Trudeau's PMO ... What, You've Never Heard of Paid Volunteers?

"Then the next day the Prime Minister's Office kindly called us and said: 'You know that  announcement we just made, would you be interested in helping us actually implement?"' 
"After much consideration, we put up our hand and said: 'Of course, we're happy to be of assistance."' 
"I misspoke. Speaking loosely and enthusiastically, I incorrectly referred to the Prime Minister's Office."
"In fact, the outreach came from unelected officials at Employment and Social Development Canada."
"In fact, all discussions came at the instigation of departmental officials and they led discussions with respect to contract and program parameters."
Marc Kielburger, co-founder, WE Charity

"When our public servants looked at the potential partners, only the WE organization had the capacity to deliver the ambitious program that young people need for for the summer."
"WE organization is the largest national youth service organization in the country. They have networks in every corner of the country and organizations that they work with."
Prime Minister JustinTrudeau

Co-founders Craig (left) and Marc Kielburger introduce Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife Sophie Gregoire-Trudeau as they appear at the WE Day celebrations in Ottawa, Nov. 10, 2015. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

"What I find suspect is that the amounts are very large for charities, and the pattern of it suddenly happening after the Liberals are elected, with the spouse of the prime minister being a high-ranking volunteer."
"That can easily turn merit-based contracting and granting decision-making processes into a 'who-you-know' process where the charities that know the prime minister and who are associated with the Prime Minister's family are the ones that get favoured. It's illegal, and for good reason."
"The evidence is clear. It's an entire waste of money and also a violation of federal ethics law."Duff Conacher, co-founder, Democracy Watch 
"What's really concerning about these sole source contracts is that it's the oldest game in Ottawa, the nudge-nudge, wink-wink of putting out contracts just below the threshold to have them put out to public. And those are the contracts that tend to be given to someone who ran  your campaign, someone who was involved with you at the party level."
"WE [Charity] made a transition from being a grass-roots organization to being very, very tied to the Trudeau brand. Then they go from having no [government] contracts to suddenly getting a series of contracts handed to them. And then they get this $900 million program in the middle of a pandemic, with no history or no credible reason that they would be the obvious choice."
Charlie Angus, ethics critic, NDP
"We know the Prime Minister is not afraid of influencing decisions to benefit his friends. At this point, the Prime Minister is beyond the benefit of the doubt and must come clean about his involvement in awarding this $900 million contact to WE."
"The Liberals must immediately release the contract for this partnership and tell Canadians why their own government officials are unable to administer this program."Michael Barrett, ethics critic, Conservative Party of Canada

Trudeau says only WE Charity can administer $900 million student grant program

In COVID Canada 2020 Parliament has been dismissed. It is no longer relevant, in this new Canada-style democracy where the nation's prime minister accustomed himself to scheduling morning televised daily press briefings where he could announce matters of pressing importance to Canadians, entirely bypassing Parliamentary procedure and questioning from members of the opposition parties with respect to decision-making of matters of national importance, including how government (taxpayers') money is spent.

Canada's Prime Minister, known to muse admiringly over the efficacy of action of a 'basic dictatorship', in speaking in the past about China, has now manoeuvered himself into his very own basic dictatorship under the emergency measures enacted in an effort to control the viral pandemic brought to us by courtesy of that very same original basic democracy where the SARS-CoV-2 virus basically erupted. Now, under guise of the executive branch ably making opposition-unapposed decisions for the greater good of the nation, close to a billion dollars has been contracted out without tender to a Trudeau-favoured charity.

This is a man skilled at skulduggery, his patrician entitlement to unethically accepting costly gifts from sources that regularly lobby government, his career-ruining personal splenetic vendetta against the second-in-command of the Canadian Armed Forces on spurious charges of releasing secret information, his undermining the authority of the nation's Minister of Justice/Attorney General in favour of a Liberal-supporting corporate interest held in law to be responsible for illegal activities, all representing a mere fraction of his failure as a leader.

Now he has sole-source-granted a federal student volunteer grant program to a charity of his choice, claiming the selection had nothing whatever to do with him; it was all the work of a government agency acting on its own, unjustifiably claiming that the charity he supports represents the only national group capable of performing the function required: "[We Charity is the] only one ... capable of networking and organizing and delivering this program on the scale that we needed it ..."

Since 2017 under the Trudeau government, WE Charity also received close to $5.2 million in grants and contributions out of various federal departments; five times the amount of grants and contributes received by it from the federal government between the years 2012 to 2016 for vague services such as "Management consulting", "Public relations services", and "Other professional services not otherwise specified". 

This is the prime minister who as a feminist, isolated and fired capably effective female ministers who disagreed with his policies and divulged his propensity to interfere with and manipulate their portfolios.  This is the feminist who declared that women must always be "believed" when they made charges of sex assaults against men, who himself had indulged in just such an unwanted assault, but found exculpatory reasoning in 'men deciphering such situations differently than women'. A man who decries racism at every turn, yet found it delightful to disport himself in blackface costumery.

That old adage that  you get what you pay for, isn't always true. But in this instance the Canadian electorate twice voted in a government that has and continues to embarrass Canada on the world stage, to declare Canada a 'post-national' country, to fail in strenuously using diplomatic and trade options in protecting the welfare of Canadians held abroad on spurious charges of espionage, revelled in describing Canada as a country with 'institutionalized racism', and generally failed in the primary goal of any government, to govern honestly and capably.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife Sophie Gregoire-Trudeau are flanked by We Day co-founders Craig Kielburger, left, and Marc Kielburger, right. MATT DAY/OTTAWA SUN