All right.
For more than 12 years, I have proudly worked at NATIONAL Public Relations, whose head office is in Montreal. I am appearing before the committee today in my capacity as president of NATIONAL Public Relations. I am joined by my colleague Chantal Benoit, director of consumer relations at our Montreal office and manager of our mandate with WE Charity.
Before Chantal provides an overview of our mandate with WE Charity, I'd like to say a few words about our firm and what we do.
Today, NATIONAL has nine offices in Canada, from coast to coast. Our pursuit of excellence and our desire to help our clients succeed drive us as we deliver on every single mandate. Each of our 300 professionals embodies our values: quality, commitment, innovation, collaboration, integrity, accountability and respect.
Year after year, more than a thousand Canadian organizations entrust our firm with mandates. The organizations range from small and medium-size enterprises, large corporations and not-for-profit organizations to professional associations, public corporations and umbrella organizations. The mandates can be very straightforward or incredibly demanding, from organizations big or small.
Our area of activity is very broad, attesting to our ability to deliver on the most complex mandates: social acceptability, public affairs, business communications, financial communications, digital communications, stakeholder relations, consumer relations, media relations and so on.
By choosing to work with NATIONAL and surround themselves with seasoned professionals who are active in society and the community, our clients, including WE Charity, are putting their confidence in a partner they can rely on. They look to us for our expertise and our commitment.
Our mandate with WE Charity is no different from the work we do for our other clients. In a world where the number of ways to communicate continues to grow and the flow of information continues to skyrocket, we help our clients promote their projects and organizations more effectively and engage in dialogue with their target audiences.
Clients like WE Charity also look to us for our ingenuity, effectiveness and ability to deploy efforts rapidly in the face of heavy demands and tight deadlines.
WE Charity approached us for support because we have the experience and skills to deliver on such a demanding mandate. A WE employee first reached out to a colleague in our Toronto office on May 15 via LinkedIn. She wanted to arrange a meeting to explain what they wanted to do and initiate discussions so that we could put together a service proposal. That took quite a few days given the complexity and scope of the project.
Cabinet approved the program on May 22, and we began working on the mandate on May 25. At no time were we involved in the contract negotiations between WE Charity and the federal government, either directly or indirectly. What is more, we were never in contact with elected officials or public servants to help WE Charity obtain the contract. We never did any lobbying on behalf of WE Charity.
My colleague Chantal Benoit will now speak to the specifics of the mandate we were given by WE Charity.