OTTAWA – WE Charity offered Canadian summer camps up to $25,000 in grants as part of the $912-million federal student volunteer program it was awarded by the Liberal government, before cancelling the deal Friday, but only if they brought in no fewer than 75 volunteers over a few months, National Post has learned.
On Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that WE Charity had pulled out of its agreement with the government to administer the Canada Student Service Grant (CSSG) after a week of mounting controversies, including accusations of cronyism, due to close ties between the WE Charity organization and Trudeau and his family.
But critics also alleged that it appeared WE Charity was using inappropriate multi-level marketing-style strategies as part of a high-volume recruitment drive for volunteers, with recruiters, as well as volunteers, being rewarded for participating. Critics said smaller organizations would be forced to create an excessive number of volunteer spots in order to receive a taxpayer-funded grant from WE Charity.
On a recording obtained by National Post of a June 12 video call between WE Charity and over 100 attendees, mostly from summer camp organizations, co-founder Marc Kielburger explained that he was looking for camps who can help WE Charity “move a reasonable volume” of volunteers.
“If your non-profit camp that could potentially move a reasonable volume of young people, and that for us is about 75-plus young people throughout the summer … there are additional funds that we can provide to you up to $25,000 towards your administration of that towards the camp,” Kielburger explained to attendees of the meeting.
“It’s by way of a grant through us, i.e. the government, which we will make available to the camp if you can potentially engage a reasonable number.” Earlier in the call, he explained that WE Charity was the administrator of the government grant program’s $912-million budget. WE Charity had been set to collect at least $19.5 million in fees for administering the program.
Kielburger did not address whether grant money would be available for camps that accept 74 volunteers or less.
Part of WE Charity’s payment was based on the number of student-volunteer participants. Some worried the 75-volunteer threshold for a camp to receive a grant was being used by WE Charity to increase their payment from the federal government.
NDP ethics critic Charlie Angus said Thursday that it was like “transforming a federal government program into something that looks like an Amway deal.”
Rather than to recruiters, he said, “That money should be going to young people who need it.”
WE Charity did not respond to questions from the National Post.
In addition to $25,000 grants to camps who welcomed at least 75 volunteers, WE Charity promised in a posting on its website earlier this week to pay $12,000 to any teacher who recruited at least 75 student volunteers, more than double the the maximum grant of $5,000 available to students under the CSSG program. The federal Liberal government had announced the program in April as a way to help students who had been unable to find summer jobs due to pandemic-related lockdowns and the economic fallout.
Conservative employment critic Dan Albas said Thursday that he was “incredibly concerned” by the amount of money that would have been tied up in WE Charity paying for recruitment.
“It seems that WE is outsourcing an outsourced program,” Albas said on Thursday, before WE Charity announced that it was pulling out of the program.
During the June 12 call, Kielburger said the idea was to reach the widest audience of volunteers.
“The whole premise here is that the government is seeking to provide this opportunity to as many young people as possible,” the WE Charity co-founder said.
Ilona Dougherty, managing director of the Youth & Innovation Project at the University of Waterloo, worried that the incentive structure laid out by Kielburger would have pushed some organizations to welcome more volunteers than necessary in order to receive the grant.
“Group volunteering is very challenging, particularly for organizations, and it does not help anyone if you need one or two young people for a task and you have 75, and you’re kind of encouraged to have 75. That’s not a great setup,” Dougherty said.
“Should a program be creating volunteer opportunities that may not have a real impact? That doesn’t serve anyone.”
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2020
