The Whole Truth and Nothing But The Truth
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.
Labels: Government of Justin Trudeau
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