Date of publication: May 02, 2022 • 2 hours ago • 11 minutes reading • 110 comments Craig Kielburger and Marc Kielburger, who appeared here during a WE Day in Toronto in 2014, were surprised to hear that their organization had been selected for management a summer job program. Photo by Hannah Yoon / The Canadian Press / File
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In the early days of the global pandemic, the Trinto government wanted to offer students the opportunity to work during the summer while helping their communities. He announced that the Canada Student Service Grant (CSSG) was to run The WE Charity, part of a well-known organization founded by brothers Craig and Mark Kielburger from Toronto. A political vortex ensued, leading to the closure of the WE charity in Canada. In the new book What We Lost, Toronto-born author Tawfiq Rangwala, a lawyer who was a member of the WE Charity board, writes that the CSSG announcement came as a shock to the WE board and board, as they had not even signed a contract there. there were many details that needed to be clarified. The following is an excerpt from the book.
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At a press conference on July 8, 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trindade was asked by Globe and Mail’s Marieke Walsh if he had resigned from cabinet discussions on WE Charity and the CSSG. He said no. Then he avoided the question when asked why. “I have worked in youth for a long time, both before I got involved in politics and since I was in politics as a youth critic,” he said. “Getting young people involved in the service of their country, recognizing their desire to build a better Canada, especially in this time of crisis, is something I deeply believe in.” Just two days later, the CBC published a news item that revealed that Finance Minister Bill Morneau had also failed to withdraw from talks on the agency.
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After some initial objection, the Minister of Finance withdrew and posted a written apology on Twitter. The fact that Trudeau and Morneau did not relinquish the cabinet decision to appoint WE as CSSG administrator came as a complete shock to the organization. This must be repeated because it is so misunderstood: WE Charity and the Kielburgers had no idea if politicians had resigned or what steps they took or did not take to comply with their own rules of conduct in government proceedings. After all, from WE’s point of view, nothing about the organization’s involvement with Trudeaus or Morneau was a secret. In fact, WE advertised Trinto’s participation in the world by putting him and his wife on stage and putting his mother and brother to speak at dozens of public events.
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Likewise, WE Charity was proud that the Morneau-McCains (Morneau’s wife is Nancy McCain, of the New Brunswick potato dynasty) were donors and had visited international projects. The hope was that they would tell everyone who listened to their experiences – that was the point. For everyone at WE, the assumption was that all government rules were obeyed and those who should have resigned did so. No one on the WE asked anyone for an opinion on whether Trinto and Morno should resign, and no one on the WE offered an opinion. And this is exactly what it should be. In one or two punches, WE Charity learned from the press at about the same time that CSSG was a proprietary contract. This also came as a complete surprise. Various civil servants had told the organization that they were asking other groups to submit proposals for the implementation of part or all of the program. In testimony before the Economic Committee, Rachel Wernick, Assistant Secretary of State for Employment and Social Development in Canada (ESDC), and others would later explain that they had explored multiple options but eventually found that no other group had the ability to manage CSSG. Due to the tight time frame and the lack of viable options, the public service only asked WE Charity to submit a formal proposal.
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Unlike WE – who had no idea he was entering into a contract of exclusive origin – the cabinet members who made the decision could of course have learned of this fact. Looking back, it surprises me that in addition to not failing to resign, both Trinto and Morno did not ask, care, or realize how an exclusive source contract could be presented to the public or exploited by opposition parties. In any case, their failure to keep the stop sign and request additional proposals from the ESDC was disastrous for WE Charity. As a board member and at the time of writing this book, I was surprised by the number of people – including those who continue to support WE Charity – who say the organization was a fool who did not see a conflict coming up.
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Treasury Secretary Bill Morneau appears before a House of Commons committee investigating a WE charity deal to run a student-volunteer program, July 22, 2020. Photo by Screengrab CPAC How did we not make sure there was no conflict when we were dealing with the government? Did the Kielburgers lose this clash because they were in a hurry? Did the board sleep on the steering wheel? Maybe we should have someone experienced in public procurement in the room? As a lawyer who spends a lot of time thinking and advising companies on conflicts of interest, I find these questions both annoying and confusing. Let us be clear: entities and individuals have an obligation to monitor and, where necessary, disclose their own conflicts of interest. So I’m worried if someone at WE Charity had an unknown conflict because, for example, he ran an unrelated nonprofit that would benefit from volunteering hours through CSSG. However, WE Charity had no responsibility for dealing with conflicts of interest on the part of the government. Nor could he. How could any agency signing a contract with the government be aware of any rules that need to be followed, which employees are likely to have conflicts, and if internal controls and balances have been observed? As discussions in the cabinet are always confidential, external groups have no idea about the decision-making process. If companies involved in government activities — whether selling pencils, providing health care, or providing charitable services — were responsible for policing the internal government’s compliance with its own rules, it would lead to paralysis and legal unrest. How could an entity be sure that every factor in government had done the right thing?
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That is why, with the CSSG, the discharge obligation rested with the ministers and other public officials involved in the decision-making process. Period. Holding WE Charity accountable for ethical decisions by government agents is as ridiculous as holding a job applicant responsible for the employer’s failure to comply with its internal hiring policies or labor laws. And yet, by negotiating a scandal, this is the kind of responsibility that some politicians and the media have tried to put on the doorstep of WE Charity. Morno’s failure to resign was particularly thorny for the government. Things got worse when Brian Lilley published a story about the Morneau family’s trip to Ecuador at the Toronto Sun on July 11th.
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“It is becoming increasingly difficult to say where the Liberal Party of Canada ends and WE Charity begins,” Lilley wrote, suggesting that it may be easier to ask which top Liberals had nothing to do with the WE than who did. The article also included a quote from Morno’s spokesman, Pierre-Olivier Herbert, who insisted that “the Morno family covered all relevant costs and expenses”. This statement turned out to be inaccurate. Eleven days later, Morneau told the finance committee that while preparing for his deposition, he realized that ME to WE had not charged him some of the expenses related to his family’s accommodation. His office, he said, had asked me for an invoice. The cost of accommodation, food and transportation within the country was around $ 13,000, but the Morneau team twice asked the WE to increase the bill to the highest possible amount one could pay for such a trip. The Morneau-McCain family had stayed for a smaller visit than usual, but his office wanted a set with no bookings for excluded days or other discounts. It may seem unusual for most Canadians to pay dramatically too much for a trip, but this request was probably made to avoid future problems with the ethics commissioner.
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On the morning of his appearance in finance, Morno wrote a check for $ 41,000, the maximum amount possible. The money was paid to WE Charity and not to ME in WE (with the social enterprise eating …
