Information & Ethics Committee on Aug. 11th, 2020

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I have enormous respect for your work here. My question is that in the middle of an unprecedented pandemic did we really need to follow up with the Prime Minister's passion of volunteerism? That was not what we were hearing from anybody.

I want to ask you about due diligence. With the Canada summer jobs we went through organization after organization trying to fill numerous forms for your officials to assure safety and yet we learn that the Kielburgers were offering $25,000 to summer camps if they could get 75 volunteers signed up. I don't know how that would be possible in the middle of a pandemic. Did you do due diligence on this? Did you say this is not how we do it at Canada summer jobs, this payout to sign up camp counsellors in the middle of a pandemic? Who signed off on that?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

I was not involved in that level of detail. Again, I wasn't the file lead on this. I don't know the context and certainly wasn't party to those discussions. I have really nothing to offer in response to that.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Okay.

We've been told again and again, that our civil service couldn't do the job, but the civil service under you would have asked questions—what do you mean, you're going to be paying camps to sign up camp counsellors in the middle of a pandemic?

I would like to talk about the $12,000 per teacher that was being offered. I'm a former school board trustee. If you are telling teachers to reach out to students and you'll pay them cash, that violates multiple codes. I can't see the civil service signing off on that, and yet this was part of the Kielburger deal. Who signed off on this? Who did the due diligence on this? We're talking about legal questions.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Absolutely. Again, I wasn't involved at that level of detail. The details you've just referred to certainly weren't part of the work within the level of detail that I saw on May 5.

Certainly there are mechanisms within the public service, though, to follow up on that kind of thing and that's what's built into the contribution agreements. But again, it's out of my lane, and I apologize. It's too hard for me to speculate in any kind of helpful way.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I appreciate that. I think if it had been in your lane, those questions would have been asked because, to me, these are really fundamentals and this is the problem that we have: serious red flags.

I go to this contribution agreement that WE.... Everybody felt comfortable with WE because you guys were invited to a lot of their events. I'm not saying you did anything wrong, but they created a comfort level in WE. We look at their contribution agreements: we're looking at a $40,000 deal, a $24,990 deal, a $17,050 deal, a $13,000 deal with the government. One goes up to $3 million, but most of them are really peanuts. The government was more than comfortable with the Kielburgers because you guys all spoke at their events; they called up the ministers. They weren't even registered to lobby.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rachael Thomas]

Thank you, Mr. Angus.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

My final question is this. You do due diligence on your file. Don't you feel that if we had done more due diligence we wouldn't be in this debacle—

[The Chair, Conservative, Rachael Thomas]

Thank you, Mr. Angus.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

—right now?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rachael Thomas]

Thank you.

I am going to turn the floor over to Mr. Poilievre for five minutes.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

On what date did Minister Chagger get the order in council powers to sign contribution agreements on behalf of your department?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

The order in council is dated March 6.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

I find it astonishing that you didn't know anything about the details of a billion-dollar program in your department until you got to the cabinet meeting where that proposal was presented.

I was the minister in your department back in 2015. If a billion-dollar program in my department were going to cabinet, I would have known about it before it got there.

Just to confirm, you knew nothing about the decision to give this program to WE until it got to cabinet. Is that what you're telling us?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

I knew about the parameters of the program, as I've testified. I did not know who was being recommended to deliver the program until I was briefed on May 5.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

That's an astonishing admission, that you would have.... I think it's political malpractice that the minister responsible for the department wouldn't have known about a billion-dollar program her department was administering.

At the May 5 cabinet meeting, was anyone from the Prime Minister's Office present?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

I cannot recall.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

All right.

When the contribution agreement to flow half a billion dollars through WE was signed, did you see that agreement before it was signed by Ms. Chagger?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Mr. Poilievre, I don't see the contribution agreements in front of any of the other ministers to whom I have delegated that level of authority. In the same way, I don't see contribution agreements within Minister Blair's department either. They're full ministers with their own lines of responsibility.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

The difference is that Minister Blair has a different department. This was your department. Your department's letterhead was on this agreement and, again, it's astonishing that the minister responsible for that department would not be up to date on a contribution agreement of this magnitude. We're not talking about a small $25,000 grant. We're talking about half a billion dollars and you've really got to ask yourself who is running the show in this government if the ministers responsible for a department don't even see the details of such proposals before the money goes out the door.

You listed the things that this Canada student service grant was supposed to do: track hours of youth, train youth and so-call “onboard” them to organizations. The Canada summer jobs program does all those things. It delegates them through charities, small businesses and other groups. Can you name even one thing that the Canada summer jobs program could not do that the WE brothers could?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

First of all, Canada summer jobs does not help individuals get the jobs like the CSSG was going to do for students, whether it be help preparing resumés, help with training, help getting ready for the interview or acting as mentors. The other thing that was very real in the non-profit sector at this time was lack of capacity. They were saying that, even if they could get five people, they didn't have time to onboard them, train them and oversee them meaningfully. This was what the delivering organization was going to do for a non-profit for capacity in that sector. It was much more hands-on than anything done with the Canada summer jobs.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

That's just false, because the non-profits that deliver the Canada summer jobs program across the country do all of those things. Every single year they hire young people, they train them how to do their jobs, they tell them the hours they're supposed to work, they track those hours and they file reports with all of that information.

Everything you've just listed is done by not-for-profits through the Canada summer jobs program. The only difference is that it has a real word, “jobs”, rather than a fake oxymoronic term, “paid volunteer”. Really, you haven't given us a single reason the program that already exists could not have delivered what you were supposedly trying to accomplish with the Canada student student grant.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

I believe that I have, in addition to the stretched capacity within the public service itself. I respectfully disagree that these programs weren't significantly different. I respect that you don't see it that way, and I don't know what more I can add.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Your claims so far are not credible. The idea that the WE brothers' foundation was going to teach and train a young person in Red Deer how to do work at a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter from afar by email, Skype or something is simply not credible. Of course, that training would have happened by the local organization itself, just as it does with the Canada summer jobs program.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rachael Thomas]

Thank you.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

What would we have done that these organizations could not have done for themselves?