The Whole Truth and Nothing But The Truth

Michelle Douglas   Parlvu.Parl.GC.CA

"The WE Charity board always understood that speakers were not paid by the charity or the related organization to speak at WE Days. The board made direct inquiries on this issue."

"I don't know the precise nature of what they were paid for, but if it was exclusively to speak on the WE Day stage, that would have surprised me."

"I did not resign as a routine member or as part of a planned board transition. I resigned because I could not do my job, I could not discharge my governance duties."

"Those reports [financial reports] were not shared with the board, despite our requests."

"It was our view that  you cannot fire hundreds of people without very strong, demonstrable evidence, and even then should explore mitigation measures to save jobs. Instead the executive team were dismissing employees with great speed and in large numbers."

"It was clear that there was a breakdown in trust between the funders and me as the board chair."

"I demanded that the executive team produce those [financial] records. The call was abruptly concluded. I resigned because I could not do my job. I could not discharge my governance duties."

Michelle Douglas former Board of Directors WE Charity

"This has been something that may destroy 25 years of work to build a national charity in this country, partially because of mistakes that we made, we acknowledge and we apologize. But frankly, significantly because of inaccurate and false information is circulated to the advantage of various groups."

"It is incredibly unfortunate that in the past 25 days we have seen the integrity of an organization the service by thousands of teachers across this country, and the work of students who have volunteered called into question."

Craig Kielburger, co-founder, WE Charity

Marc and Craig Keilburger, WE Charity cofounders

Finally, the Canadian House of Commons federal finance committee, looking into the issues that have erupted in the past few weeks over a sole-sourced contract valued at close to a billion dollars given to acknowledged personal friends of the prime minister, have heard directly from the two Kielburger brothers, Marc and Craig, their version of events as they unfolded. Basically the two brothers informed parliamentarians questioning them during a four-hour session that the scandal resulted from "misrepresentations" by the media, by critics and politician.

The "labyrinthian" corporate structure of the WE Charity was explained as innocently ill advised; that their for-profit group and their charitable group were interconnected with one raising funds and dispersing it to the other. What is more inexplicable are the other arms, one specific to real estate property ownership and management, another, a shell company whose purpose was ostensibly to protect the assets of the others, but which was the signee for the government's Canada Student Service Grant to WE Charity Foundation that would have given them a $48-billion payment for services rendered.

Audited financial statements indicate that the charity has paid ME to WE over $11 million since 2009, in cash, much of it representing  the purchase of promotional items or travel and leadership training services. ME to WE claims to have donated $21.4 million to its charitable arm in 11 years representing scarcely five percent of WE Charity's total revenue since 2009; of that sum, $8.6 million represented "in-kind" contributions; not money but items like "donated ME to WE Trips hosting donors an dyouth on scholarship; donated printing of educational materials, donations of ME to WE Artisans from women in Kenya". Leaving one to exhale a huge: WOT?!

There is, in addition to the finance committee investigation, two other parliamentary investigations opened into this very peculiar and revealingly unethical event where it has been seen that both the prime minister and the finance minister who both signed off on the contract to WE when they should have recused themselves in recognition of their deep and personal connections to the charity, has occasioned the Parliamentary Ethics Commissioner to launch an enquiry on these suspect connections as well, for each man, the third such ethical breach for both.

WE co-founders Craig Kielburger, left, and Marc Kielburger, right, introduce Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, at WE Day celebrations in Ottawa in 2015. Trudeau and Morneau both have faced criticism for not disclosing their ties to the organization and not recusing themselves when a government contract was awarded to WE. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

The WE Charity has paid for speeches given at their events by the wife of the prime minister, the prime minister's mother Margaret Trudeau, and the brother of the prime minister, to a total of $300,000. On the part of the Finance Minister, Bill Morneau, one daughter has spoken at WE events, another works for the charity and in 2017 the Morneau family accepted travel invitations by WE Charity to Kenya and Ecuador. Mr. Morneau only recalled not having paid back $41,000 for his family's travel and accommodation last week, when he appeared before the finance committee investigation.

The former chair of WE Charity's board of directors also testified before the committee, to the effect that the board was informed quite explicitly that speakers at youth events connected to WE Charity volunteered their time, and did not receive honorariums. Margaret Trudeau, Justin Trudeau's mother alone received $250,000 for 28 speaking engagements between 2016 and 2020. While brother Alexandre was paid $32,000 for eight events at which he spoke. As a Member of Parliament, not yet leader of the Liberal Party Justin Trudeau himself undertook speaking engagements at various charities for hefty speaking fees.

WE Charity's executive, in response to the March lockdown for the global pandemic went into panic mode over the financial impacts of COVID-19, laying off staff in large numbers, to the final tally of 400 personnel. In their defence, the brothers testified that they had paid Margaret Trudeau not for speaking, but for hosting after-parties, attending receptions and holding autograph sessions on the day of the speeches. Jaw-dropping inanity as an explanation, yet put forward as an explanation countering the 'misinformation' that has been so ruinous to their 25-year work in establishing their WE Charity as a Canadian institution of noble enterprise.

Where the brothers explain that their organization, while complex, and eliciting condemnatory comments from critics

  ,their intention all along was to "be of service", sounding suspiciously like Justin Trudeau's constant reminders to his own critics that he "means well". Accounting for the financial links between the profit side and non-profit side of the enterprise in the two separate groups, things do not add up reassuringly, taking into account the amounts received by WE Charity to enable it to pursue its overseas charitable work, leaving vast sums in possession of the for-profit group which then goes on to acquire real estate, a preoccupation inconsistent with charitable enterprises.

The group chose to default on several of the property mortgages held by banks, not because they were unable to raise the money to honour their bank debts, but because the choice was made to retain the funding internally and put off paying the mortgages. "It is certainly slightly unconventional that they would choose to have these revolving debt facilities when they have enough in other securities and assets to simply not be in debt. Of course there's nothing wrong with structuring your finances this way, but it is more typical of a private corporation than a charity", advises one accounting expert.

Which raises the question: when is a charity not a charity? The chair of the WE Charity board of directors made an effort to straighten out these confused events and to establish the answer to that question to her satisfaction. Her enquiries and demands for information ended with a receiver on the other end of the telephone terminating the conversation, following which she was asked to submit her resignation.