Contract to WE Charity : the ethics committee of the Commons meets

Marc Kielburge and Craig Kielburger

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July 29, 2020 18h02

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Contract to WE Charity : the ethics committee of the Commons meets

The canadian Press

OTTAWA — The ethics committee of the House of commons meets on Wednesday afternoon to advance its own investigation into the contract awarded without a call for proposals by the liberal government to the charity WE Charity (UNITED) to administer the canadian stock Exchange for the volunteer student.

The members of this committee want to get documents on the fees the charity has paid to members of the family of the prime minister Justin Trudeau. For their participation at public events and of STATES, the mother of Mr. Trudeau, Margaret Trudeau, and the brother of the prime minister, Alexandre, might as well hit both of them about $ 300,000 — plus per diem.

The members of the opposition, who are more numerous than the liberals on this committee, have also used their majority to ask Mr. Trudeau to testify.

The prime minister is scheduled to testify Thursday before the standing finance Committee of the House of commons. The members of this committee want to know what led the federal cabinet to choose US to administer this scholarship program for volunteering, aimed at students and graduates who could not find work this summer because of the pandemic. Before the controversy, STATES has finally withdrawn from the contract on July 2, and the program is now administered by the public service.

Conflict of interest ?

The standing Committee on access to information, privacy and ethics, for its part, wishes to ” examine the measures in place to prevent conflicts of interest in the spending policies of the federal government “. Mps needed to hear Philippe Dufresne, clerk and parliamentary counsel of the House of commons.

The liberals have provided for a budget of 912 million for the Scholarship program, canadian volunteer student, but they have only agreed to pay a maximum of 543 million to STATES with almost 500 million for scholarships and about 43.5 million to the agency for its costs.

However, the co-founders of the united STATES, the brothers Craig and Marc Kielburger, have said on Tuesday to the finance Committee that they expected that the program costs up to $ 300 million. In the testimony of four hours, they have ensured that their agency was selected for its experience in the environment and not because of close ties with the Trudeau government.

The all-expenses paid trips for donors would be unusual

Experts in the charitable community as unusual the practice of STATES, which pays for the travel expenses to the foreign donor, even if the agency asserts that this may lead later to generous donations.

The federal minister of Finance, Bill Morneau, said to members of the finance Committee of the House of commons, last week, that he had just reimburse STATES more than $ 41,000 for travel that he and his family had made in 2017. The minister was then invited to see first-hand the humanitarian projects of the charity.

UNITED contends that it had intended from the outset to cover the cost of these trips. The agency believes that this practice of covering the expenses of potential donors is nothing extraordinary in the international development sector.

Ann Rosenfield, of the agency board ” Charitably Speaking “, which has more than 20 years of experience in the field, argues, however, that this practice of pay to that of wealthy donors travelling abroad is not common in the charitable community.

Ms. Rosenfield and Elizabeth Gomery, associated founder of the society of philanthropic counsel, say the charities, which allow donors to participate in trips abroad usually expect that they pay their own expenses.

STATES argues that the trips offered to sponsors and potential donors to observe first-hand the work of the organization enabled him to raise millions of dollars.

During his appearance before the committee of Commons, on 22 July, the minister Morneau revealed that in the summer of 2017, he had traveled with his wife and one of their daughters in Kenya to learn more about the work of STATES in this country. Later this year, he is said to have traveled with his family in Ecuador to take note of the projects that UNITED carries.

Le Soleil