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.

Canada's Parliamentary Democracy Revised

"There's been no justification from the very beginning for shutting down Parliament completely."

"What the Liberals have been doing with regards to essentially derailing Parliament goes against everything they promised in the 2015 election campaign about open, honest and accountable government."

"The New Democratic Party forgot the middle part of their name in rolling over and supporting the Liberals in this undemocratic move."

Duff Conacher, co-founder, Democracy Watch

"Four hours [given under the Liberals new closed Parliament to debate the massive debt incurred by the public aid package] for that amount of money [roughly estimated at $260 billion] is virtually nothing." 

"It's a bit surprising given all the measures the government has been introducing."

Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks and is projected onto large screens as he takes part in the COVID-19 Pandemic Committee in the House of Commons on May 27, 2020. Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

 At a time when the entire nation is caught up in the grips of a global pandemic, where a highly infectious SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19 has resulted in a nationwide lockdown, huge unemployment, a devastated economy and massive borrowing, the country's prime minister, Justin Trudeau has seen fit to sequester himself for months, appearing only before reporters for a daily press conference outside the front steps of the temporary official residence to give updates mostly focusing on how his government has generously decided to sprinkle money at affected groups.

Where some demographics have been identified as in dire financial straits due to job loss and loss of opportunities for working students to pay for tuition, and temporary foreign workers awaiting the results of refugee claims, and seniors struggling with higher lockdown costs have been given relief funding. There has been no oversight, those who make application for the weekly deposits to their bank accounts need give no proof of need and even those on social assistance can apply for CERB [Canada Emergency Relief Benefit].

An estimated total of $150 billion in emergency funding, most of it representing borrowed finances that will add massively to Canada's deficit represents a government response to the emergency situation Canada finds itself in resulting from the overall lockdown of industry, business, trade and any commercial transactions in the initial effort to control the runaway viral outbreak. Because of the outbreak, Parliament's regular sittings were suspended, but for skeleton sittings. The Liberal government has been shielded from questions by the opposition.

In very fact the Liberal government of Canada, re-elected as a minority government, has been governing as though there is no opposition, in a manner that is more akin to a dictatorship than a parliamentary democracy. In effect, Justin Trudeau has succeeded in undermining parliamentary accountability by suspending Parliament until mid-September. An action supported by the NDP opposition and opposed by the official opposition party, the Conservative Party of Canada.

In a little traditional game of quid pro quo, the NDP extracted a price for its support, as part of its socialist platform the Liberals were only too happy to accede to, to gain the votes it needed to pass the suspension of Parliament but for a few special hearings on COVID-19. The prime minister who speculated once on his admiration for Beijing and the Communist Party of China to turn matters around on a dime, has finally manipulated a situation during a crisis emulating that of the CPC, bringing Canada to the status of 'your basic dictatorship'.

The motion to suspend Parliament until September 21 passed with the assent of the New Democratic Party, which obviously gave short shrift to its own namesake values. Giving the Liberal government the cover it wanted to sidestep scrutiny of the emergency spending launched by the government. Which has proven to be as much an opportunity for popularity and vote-buying for the Liberals as it has been to support Canadians facing economic difficulties during the COVID epidemic.

The vote passed 28-23, representing those elected Members of Parliament who were in the House of Commons in the much-diminished Parliament. As for Parliament not operating as it should, during this time of the pandemic, it's passing strange that elected Parliamentarians cannot do what they were elected for, while people working in hospitals, grocery stores and other employees deemed vital to the situation are managing to serve the public while observing safe distance, but high-paid MPs cannot.

With the passing of the motion, the dangers the Liberals face of a no confidence vote in their minority status cannot occur. A special COVID-19 committee is slated to continue meeting into June without the powers of Parliament, where opposition parties are able to do what they too were elected for. The four-hour limit set aside for one sitting to enable opposition questioning of the government's emergency agenda, came under criticism by Aaron Wudrick, director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, leaving the government spending programs free to continue as the government wishes without accountability.

"There's just no reason for them [the Liberals] to do it this way, except that they don't want to be bothered with basic parliamentary accountability" he noted. "These are historical changes to program spending. MPs cannot scrutinize in a proper way" -- the spending proposals within a four-hour window -- observed Kevin Page, founding president, Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy and formerly Canada's first Parliamentary Budget Officer.