For the third time in as many years, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is embroiled in a controversy involving ethics and conflict of interest. The issue relates to the federal government providing a $900 million sole-source contract to the WE Charity to manage the Canada Student Service Grant (CSSG). The program would pay students up to $5,000 for providing 500 hours of voluntary service to various charities throughout the summer and fall of 2020. The Conservative and the NDP opposition have cried foul because of close ties between WE Charity and Justin Trudeau and Bill Morneau’s families. In Trudeau’s case, his mother and brother received more than $300,000 in benefits from WE Charity over the past number of years.
WE Charity (formerly Free the Children) was founded in 1995 by Craig Kielburger to fight child labour practices in India and elsewhere. Kielburger, who was 12 at the time, travelled to South Asia to meet child labourers in person. He scored a major coup by button-holing then prime minister Jean Chretien during the trip and persuading the PM to take a public stand against child slavery. Craig and his brother, Marc Kielburger, went on to support international development projects in education, health care and safe drinking water in Kenya, Ecuador and India. In 2019, WE was given $3 million by the federal government to create 200 youth-led enterprises that address social issues at the community level throughout Canada.
In testimony before the House of Commons finance committee, Craig Kielburger argued that WE Charity solicits support from all political parties. While that may be true, it’s apparent that the organization has a special appeal to politicians and celebrities on the left side of the political spectrum. In addition to Chretien, WE supporters have included Oprah Winfrey, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Jane Goodall and others.
In testimony before the finance committee last week, Trudeau argued it was the federal public service which suggested using WE Charity to deliver the CSSG program. He said he initially rejected the idea because of his close family ties to WE and sent it back for more study. It was only when the proposal came back a second time that he endorsed WE. He and Finance Minister Bill Moreau have both apologized for not recusing themselves from the cabinet discussion.
Recusal or no recusal, it is clear the WE Charity has a long association with the Liberal party and with members of the Trudeau and Morneau families. Any cabinet decision that saw WE winning a sole-source contract valued at $900 million would raise eyebrows in Ottawa about fairness and value for tax dollars spent. The key question is why the PM and the federal government would rush forward when a more transparent bidding process would have given any charitable organization the opportunity to prove they could do the work. Urgency is the obvious answer, but urgency doesn’t replace good judgment.
As taxpayers, we should take comfort in knowing that the system works. The opposition raised red flags and WE Charity withdrew its proposal. Now the government is struggling to figure out if the CSSG can be delivered in-house. In the meantime, Trudeau and his Liberal colleagues have been damaged again by a bad judgment call on the part of the prime minister.
In the final analysis, it’s students who will not be receiving $5,000 who will be feeling the pain this fall.
Bryson Guptill worked for many years as a senior policy advisor for federal and provincial governments in Ottawa and Charlottetown.
