Information & Ethics Committee on March 8th, 2021

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

I will call this meeting to order.

This is the 23rd meeting of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. This morning we had intended, of course, to hear from the Kielburgers, but they've declined their earlier acceptance of the invitation.

Already I'm getting indications from committee members who would like to speak to that specifically. I will turn immediately to Mr. Barrett first.

Mr. Barrett, the floor is yours.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

Good morning. I had put a motion on notice with the committee last week, following the letter we received from the lawyer representing Marc and Craig Kielburger. I'll get to the text of that motion in just a moment. I do think it's important to note the seriousness of what was contained in that letter, and—

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

A point of order, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Mrs. Shanahan.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Is it normal that we don't see Mr. Barrett on screen?

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

It would be good to see Mr. Barrett. We'll ask our technical crew to see if that is possible.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

I'm happy to see and be seen.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

We'll give them a minute here. As soon as we see him pop up on the screen, we'll turn the floor back to him.

There we go.

Mr. Barrett, the floor is yours.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Thanks very much, Chair.

The seriousness of the contents of the letter from the lawyers representing Marc and Craig Kielburger has to be addressed. It is the reason I put a motion on notice, which I will read in just a moment, for the committee's consideration.

The committee went to great lengths—specifically, our committee clerk worked over several months—to secure an appearance by the proposed witnesses, Marc and Craig Kielburger. We bent and worked with their schedule, and had a scheduled date. That date no longer worked for them. The committee found a new date that would work. In the days leading up to that meeting, we received this letter from the Kielburgers' lawyer. It said that they wouldn't appear at this committee. Not only would they not appear in response to the invitation; they also stated they would not appear if a summons were issued for them.

That's incredibly serious. Our committee and Canada's Parliament have the right to request that witnesses appear. We also have the right to issue a summons. For individuals to openly dismiss the invitations and to pre-emptively say that they will not respond to a summons really is flouting the legitimacy and the authority of Canada's Parliament. The letter from their legal counsel was, I think, shocking, and it was highly inappropriate.

These two gentlemen are both recipients of the Order of Canada and they often wear their pins on their lapel. For them to demonstrate to Canadians and to all the schoolchildren—they've appeared at their schools and invited them to events with their organization—that what they are doing is important but what Canada's democratically elected members are doing is not is absolutely the wrong message to send.

I will be moving a motion now that this committee do issue summons for both of these individuals, as follows:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(1)(a), and further to the motions adopted by the Committee on January 29 and February 19, 2021, in light of Craig and Marc Kielburger’s refusals to attend the Committee on March 8, 2021, summonses do issue to Craig and Marc Kielburger to appear before the Committee, for at least three hours, at a date and time determined by the Chair but no later than one week following the adoption of this motion, provided that if either or both of them fails to appear after being served with the summons, or refuses or evades service of the summons, the Chair shall be instructed to present a report to the House forthwith setting out the relevant facts.

Chair, that motion was put on notice last week. It's available in both official languages. I, of course, will be supporting this motion, and would encourage all of my colleagues on committee to do the same.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

I find that motion in order.

I have three people on the speakers list. We'll go to Mr. Angus first, who will be followed by Mrs. Shanahan and then Dr. Carrie.

Mr. Angus, we'll turn to you.

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

Thank you, Chair.

First off, I would like to wish a happy International Women's Day to all of the incredible women parliamentarians in our institution and to the incredible women everywhere who do so much incredible work for building a better society.

Second, I'm very worried about the Kielburgers' reaction in defiance of the committee. So I will support my colleague's motion.

It is unacceptable for the Kielburgers to refuse to explain their actions. They have the obligation to appear before the committee to explain their role in the Canada Student Service Grant scandal. This is also their opportunity to explain their role and to respond to the allegations that they manipulated international donors. It is essential for the Kielburgers to respect Parliament's right to call witnesses and to initiate investigations on the disbursement of government funds.

I'm going to take a few minutes, if my colleagues don't mind, just to ask, “How did we get here?” and to put this in a very clear picture so that we understand, because we are dealing with a very disturbing and unprecedented situation with the refusal to appear and the threat to defy a summons.

Today should have been the last day of witness testimony of our study into the $912 million in taxpayer money that would have been given to the Kielburger group. This study began eight months ago. It has been subject to an unprecedented level, I would say, of interference and interruption. Last summer, we were on the eve of getting key documents in the scandal, when the Prime Minister shut down Parliament because of the corrosive effects of the revelations that were coming forward from both the finance and ethics committee investigations.

When Parliament reconvened, our committee was blocked by filibustering on the government side for the equivalent of 20 straight meetings. That meant we were well into November before this committee could pick up where it left off in the summer. In the end, all parties came together and agreed that we needed to finalize this report as our obligation to Parliament. We agreed on a final set of meetings that would include the testimony from the Kielburger brothers and other key representatives of the WE organization.

Instead of us being able to finalize this report, the Kielburger brothers have announced that they are refusing to appear today. Not only that, but through their lawyers they have stated that the leadership of WE will also defy Parliament. I'm not sure if they're including some of their staff in that refusal. Even more extraordinary is their claim that they will defy a legal summons if it's issued. This is a direct challenge to the powers of Parliament to investigate spending and issues of insider access that are well within the purview of our committee, and it is well within the constitutional privileges that we have as democratically elected members representing the people of Canada.

What happened in the last two weeks to cause the Kielburger brothers to take such a reckless course of action? Well, a little over a week ago, we heard extraordinary testimony from a major WE donor who made allegations of donor manipulation. Mr. Reed Cowan is an Emmy award-winning journalist, and he is a member of WE Charity's advisory board. Following his very emotional and powerful testimony to our committee, he stated the need for an IRS, CRA and police investigation into how this group raises funds.

Reed Cowan has a right to get answers from the Kielburgers, and those answers should have been presented to our committee today. Would the Kielburgers have faced hard questions? Certainly, but when you are in the business of raising charitable funds, trust and accountability are sacrosanct, so you show up and you answer the tough questions, because hard questions on fundraising are also fair questions.

Reed Cowan wasn't the only problem facing the Kielburgers last week. Bloomberg released a damning article entitled “WE Charity's Actions Leave a Trail of Enraged, Grieving Donors”. The article lays out disturbing allegations of donor manipulation whereby the emotional ties of potential donors were played on to get major fundraising initiatives undertaken. Bloomberg states, “WE donors include grieving parents, school kids, corporate sponsors, wealthy foundations, and widows such as the 89-year-old Joyce Jennison.”

They say:

Joyce Jennison is left wondering why that little schoolhouse with the green roof in the photo was dedicated to another grieving family. And where is [her husband] Don's plaque?

Because it's more than a plaque to her. It's his tombstone.

Joyce Jennison has a right to hear testimony today, but instead, the Kielburgers have gone to ground.

Then, last night, CBC followed up with a disturbing exposé of a similar pattern of donor manipulation in supporting a water project in Kenya.

Mr. Chair, when I watched that documentary, I was deeply moved by the incredible volunteerism that we see in our country in places like Whistler and Mount Forest, where so many people came together to make a difference. They were inspired by the promises of the Kielburger brothers about how their money was being spent. It made me think of my own two daughters, who, when they were young, read Craig Kielburger's autobiography. I drove them hundreds and hundreds of kilometres to Free the Children events. They began raising funds for a school in Nicaragua, because they believed.

We need to reassure people that their goodwill efforts matter and that their time and their fundraising are respected, because when you are in the business of raising funds, you are in the business of raising hope. All those people who believed and hoped they were making a difference have a right to hear the Kielburger brothers explain themselves.

Today was an opportunity for Craig and Mark Kielburger to take the hard questions and explain what is going on in their organization, but having to put those explanations on the record in televised hearings appears too much for them, so they have gone to ground.

They've stated through their lawyer that they will defy any legal summons to what they claim is an attempt by “a partisan...committee...to carry out its own substitute investigation”. There is no substitute investigation. There is the parliamentary committee that has been assigned to this since last summer. It is the ethics committee investigation, and we are being blocked right now by their refusal to testify.

Fair question: What do the issues of grieving and angry donors have to do with the report of this committee? Well, when we look at the $912 million that was being set aside for the Kielburger organization, it comes down to three questions.

One, was proper due diligence done on the claims made by the Kielburger brothers to deliver a very complex program involving a staggering amount of money in a very short period of time?

Two, did the Kielburgers get the inside track because of their close relationship to the Liberal government and the key ministers on the file, for whom the Kielburgers had curated strong personal connections? Did this inside track involve illegal lobbying? I would have loved to have Craig given the opportunity to explain how he worked those corridors of power and how he did follow the rules—if he did indeed.

The third question is, what exactly is this group and how do they operate? We have WE Charity. We have ME to WE. We have the WE foundation. We have a multiplicity of side companies, real estate holdings and shell companies. Bureaucrats took it for granted, as I think we all would have, that they were dealing with WE Charity, but in the end the Canadian people were asked to sign over $540 million in that initial funding agreement to a shell company that was set up to manage WE's immense real estate holdings—a shell company. How is that possible? Is it because the Kielburgers' reputation was seemingly so stellar that no hard questions were asked?

After eight months of investigation by this committee, I can say that I'm sure every single member of this committee is no further ahead in knowing how the money flows or even how many corporate entities the Kielburger brothers control.

We would have asked those questions today, but they are a no-show.

Now, the Kielburgers are portraying themselves in the media as politically naive, that they were somehow the victims of partisan mugging, but the facts do not back this up. If you watch the meteoric rise of the Kielburger brothers, you realize that they carefully cultivated their political friends. They built strong relationships across North America. They knew how to work the Davos crowd. Also, the Kielburger brothers worked very closely with Justin Trudeau when he was running for leader. They helped create his image as the aspiring stadium hero for young people. They gave him a stage and helped build his brand, even to the point of doing promotional videos for him.

When Justin Trudeau became Prime Minister, the Kielburger brothers were essentially adopted as goodwill ambassadors for Canada. They led the Canada 150 celebrations. They were chosen to represent Canada at the UN, with a huge stadium-type show that featured the Prime Minister and his wife.

They cannot now defy our democratic institutions because they say they're partisan and they no longer work for them.

We learned how carefully they cultivated their relationship with then finance minister Bill Morneau. They hired his daughter. They sent their volunteers to work at his events, and they paid $41,000 for him and his family to travel the world. No wonder Morneau's staff said Bill Morneau and the Kielburgers were “besties”.

This relationship was so solid that on April 10, 2020, Craig Kielburger bypassed all staff in the finance office and wrote directly to Bill Morneau:

Hi Bill,

I hope this finds you, Nancy, Henry, Clare, Edward, and Grace enjoying some well-deserved downtime....

In that message, Craig was asking for Bill Morneau to sign off on a $12-million grant. Within a mere 11 days, the finance minister gave a verbal sign-off on this funding.

At no point was Craig Kielburger registered to lobby. His director of government relations, Sofia Marquez, who was also not registered to lobby, said to our committee that she was not involved at all in the negotiations of this $12-million proposal. This was handled by Craig Kielburger.

A $12-million side deal negotiated by two besties is not how funding projects are supposed to be handled in Canada. Craig Kielburger could have been here today to explain how that went down, but he's not.

That April 10 outreach by Craig Kielburger led to the meeting with Minister Chagger on April 17, at which, according to both Marquez and Kielburger in their subsequent emails, Minister Chagger gave them the heads-up on this separate service stream proposal that became the $900-million grant.

I have to point out here that both Minister Chagger and Minister Qualtrough, whose ministries oversaw this proposal, had been featured on stage at the WE Day rallies. There is nothing wrong with that, but the issue here is that when tough questions should have been asked, nobody was asking them.

Despite claims that the government was looking at other options, the documents are clear. The Kielburger group had the inside track from the get-go. There was no other group spoken to, no other organization offered the chance to bid. It doesn't cut it today for the Kielburgers, who exploited this extraordinary level of insider access within the corridors of power, to then refuse to answer questions about how they used these relationsips to their advantage.

Let's just connect the dots, in my final segment here, between the “donor gate” scandal, which has emerged in the media, and the summer student grant scandal.

One of the deeply disturbing allegations in the Bloomberg article is the fact that multiple members of the WE staff joked about what they called “Kiel math”.

Bloomberg spoke to nearly two dozen former staffers whose employment spanned two decades across the world. They described a corporate culture they said played fast and loose with the facts. “Kiel Math” was how staff referred to the way WE quantified its impact....

Why does that matter? Because we see all through the Kielburger documents to the Canadian government claims that simply don't add up.

Let's take the fact that the Kielburgers initially claimed they could take 16,000 students themselves. This is an organization that had just laid off hundreds. When assistant deputy finance minister Michelle Kovacevic wrote that they were not only going to take 16,000 but they were ready to take 20,000 students, then the Kielburgers toned it down and said they could handle 10,000. Any of those numbers would be extraordinary.

For anyone out there who had done any kind of work in trying to run programs to suddenly announce that over a month they would take 20,000, 16,000, or 10,000.... Maybe they could; maybe they couldn't. You would think that tough questions would have been asked, things like “Okay, exactly how is this going to go down?”

When they said they had toned it down to 10,000, they said they had a deal with Imagine Canada to get another 10,000 students placed. That was stated on April 30, by Craig Kielburger. It was updated in their claim of partnership on May 4. Minister Chagger did not question these claims; in fact, she brought their statement, word for word, into her cabinet briefing, so it was the Kielburgers' spin and “Kiel math” that were being used to sell cabinet on the idea.

This Kielburger language was repeated by ESDC to reassure the Treasury Board when it began to ask how this was going to go down. This is significant, because the Imagine Canada partnership reassured department officials that this project was doable, but there was no agreement with Imagine Canada. Neither Chagger's nor Morneau's office bothered to check.

Imagine Canada even felt a need to come forward to say that they had no partnership on this, yet in late June this supposed partnership was still being promoted in former minister Bill Morneau's notes. What does that tell us? Basic due diligence wasn't done. It was the Kielburger brothers and “Kiel math” that was trusted from the get-go.

If the Kielburger brothers had shown up today, we could have asked them those hard questions. Unlike their testimony from last July, we have the documents now that show how things really went down—something we didn't have when we first questioned them. They could have responded to all our challenges. If they had facts on their side, this was their opportunity to set the record straight.

Any group, any organization that's looking to receive $912 million in taxpayers' money must be willing to show up and answer the hard questions. Instead, the key players in this scandal are refusing to testify and defying Parliament.

We have an obligation as parliamentarians at committee to take the evidence heard at committee and present it to Parliament. We cannot be obstructed in this work just because the central people in the drama do not want to be accountable. The fact that we've been forced to issue four legal summonses to compel testimony from an international charity that has worked in the schools of all our children is a staggering situation. Charities are transparent. Charities are accountable. We should not be in a situation of having to issue four legal summonses just to get answers about how they operate.

However, I would say, colleagues, that this issue is bigger than our committee and the Kielburgers because the threat to defy a legal summons from Parliament is not simply obstruction. It is a challenge to the entire parliamentary system that we have, because what we do as parliamentarians sets precedent. If we set a precedent that it's okay to ignore Parliament, then others will follow in due course and it will undermine the democratic accountability mechanisms that we have.

We have a big issue before us. What I would like to do today is to amend my colleague's motion to state that we will give the Kielburger brothers until this Friday to appear. If they do not appear at committee by Friday, we will consider them to be obstructing and hostile to the work of the committee. We will prepare the report that we have been working on as we intended to do and report that finding to Parliament. We will also—and I'm asking my colleagues to consider this—if they do not appear by Friday, prepare another report to Parliament to refer this issue of contempt of our committee to Parliament for its consideration.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

I will consider that amendment in order.

I'll go to Mrs. Shanahan now.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I take it we're discussing the subamendment now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

The amendment, that's right.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you.

Chair, I think these are the same remarks I had for the motion in general. I, too, was very dismayed at the public statements that were made by the Kielburger brothers in the form of the letter we all saw. Indeed, as a parliamentarian I realize that we deal with very difficult subjects, but they're of importance to the Canadian people. In our power to ask for witnesses, I find that we have—and I'd like to congratulate you and the clerk—shown flexibility in requesting the appearance of witnesses. I think this is more than disrespect. It is a challenge to the authority that we have as parliamentarians and this committee.

In that regard, Chair, I don't think there's a member here who is in disagreement. We're in agreement with the amendment and with the motion in general. If the committee wants to move to unanimous consent on both of these motions, we are in agreement.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, Mrs. Shanahan.

There are three additional people on the speaking order now. It seems to me that they'd like to speak on it. Once they do, I hope that we can move to a vote.

We'll move to Mr. Carrie.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Colleagues, we've heard that as a parliamentary committee, we have the right to call witnesses. I would argue that we have an obligation to call these witnesses. Last meeting, we had a father pour out his heart about what he expected and what he worked hard for as the legacy of his son. Frankly, I think all of us were outraged but also even more committed to getting to the bottom of this. He said he didn't know who the bad guys are, and I committed to him that I would do my best to get to the bottom of it. When a witness comes before us, having dealt with such high levels and charities, and says that they feel they have been defrauded, I think it's up to all of us to pass this motion.

I'll let my colleague Mr. Angus know that I'm in favour of his amendment, because this is about the integrity and transparency of not only our government but also our entire charity system.

When I asked WE's government relations person, last meeting, if she was aware that former minister Morneau had not repaid $42,000 for his trip to Kenya, she said she had no idea. Well, Mr. Chair, I think somebody knows, and we need to get to the bottom of it. What kind of trip do you get for $42,000? I know people in Oshawa.... I have many constituents who, for heaven's sake, don't make that in a year, and frankly, this is not WE's money. This is the money of 14-year-olds who do bottle drives to give from their hearts to this charity to make a difference in other children's lives. This is about 12-year-olds who collect for months and years from bake sales.

Canadians and international donors deserve to have a system of integrity and transparency, a system that is free from scandal and above reproach, without ever thinking about the possibility of bribery, influence peddling or fraud. They deserve to know, and when we try to answer the question “Who are the bad guys here?”, the Kielburgers' behaviour kind of narrows that in my mind.

I think, Mr. Chair, as I said, this is not just a right; this is an obligation. We need to move forward with this motion as soon as possible.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, Mr. Carrie.

We'll turn to Monsieur Fortin.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will not repeat everything said by my committee colleagues, but I completely agree with them.

I was reading the letter from the Kielburgers' lawyer, and I thought it was a bit unseemly. As a lawyer, I am not sure I would have written that letter. In any case, I would not have written it like that. I can understand that he does not want his clients to testify, but I mostly think it is an announcement that someone will act in contempt of Parliament. I think that is unacceptable.

Of course, I fully agree that what happened in the WE Charity business with the Prime Minister merits further consideration. It is scandalous. This has been said over and over since last summer in all committees. I still agree with it.

Beyond that whole substantive issue, we cannot tolerate someone telling us in advance that they scoff at Parliament's orders. That is unacceptable. There is a process for opposing a summons if a person thinks it is invalid. They can request that the summons be suspended. There is legal recourse for that, but they certainly cannot say that they do not intend to obey and that they don't care. That is unacceptable.

If we tolerate this, I don't know where things will go, but I will be a bit embarrassed. I think we must react. In any case, the Kielburgers would benefit from coming to explain themselves, if only to correct what has been said, as the accusations that have been made are serious. I am thinking of all the witnesses, the CBC article I was reading this morning and the Fifth Estate report from about two weeks ago. All that is serious. Reed Cowen's testimony contains serious accusations. If I was one of the Kielburgers, I would want to explain myself and clear my name. I cannot understand them hiding as they are.

Beyond this, as parliamentarians, we have the responsibility to say to all Canadians that, when they receive a summons, that is an order that must be obeyed. If they don't agree, there is a process for asking that the summons be quashed, but they cannot just shirk their obligations.

For those reasons, I intend to support the motion, as well as Mr. Angus's amendment, which I have no problem with. An appearance must take place without delay, be it this week or next week, and the message must be clear.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you.

Monsieur Gourde, we'll turn to you.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I won't take very long, either.

I support the amendment and the motion. When we received the letter on Friday, I was very disappointed to see that this saga would no doubt continue through lengthy proceedings. That's really disappointing for our committee and for Canadians, who have the right to know the truth. We have the right to know what the Kielburgers have to say to the committee about all that we have heard for nearly a year, after all the work we have done.

It makes no sense to refuse to talk to a parliamentary committee. It should be considered an honour to be invited to appear before a committee to explain matters. Right now, the Kielburgers are ignoring an invitation to explain themselves before all Canadians.

I will not delay the committee's work any further. I hope we will be able to vote immediately, Mr. Chair, if no one is opposed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, colleagues.

I'm not seeing anyone else wanting to intervene. We will move first to the vote on the amendment. I will seek the committee's.... It looks like there's unanimous consent to move on the amendment. I'm seeing heads nodding.

Is anyone opposed to moving the amendment?

There is full support for the amendment.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

For the amended motion, then, colleagues, it looks like there is support. Is anyone opposed?

I am not seeing any opposition. It is unanimous.

(Motion as amended agreed to)

I will sign the summons as soon as possible, as soon as it can be drafted. That will be delivered to the Kielburger lawyers as soon as possible.

Colleagues, we do have a few other items with regard to committee business. I did want to inform committee members that the MindGeek documents for our committee have been delivered. Those were the ones we requested. The introductory letter alone was seven pages long. That has been translated now and circulated to the members. Hopefully, you were able to receive that.

The remaining documents are thousands of pages of documentation. We have asked the analysts to review the documentation first to ensure that all the things that were requested are included in that compilation of documents. We will hear back from the analysts once they've been able to confirm. You can imagine that it will take a little bit of time for those documents to be translated before they can be distributed. We did want to give you a heads-up in terms of those facts. Hopefully, every member has been able to read at least the introductory letter that was circulated to members.

Pardon me; I said the seven-page cover letter has been delivered, but it has not yet been delivered. You haven't read it yet, because you haven't received it yet. You will receive it today. Apologies to members for that.

In terms of the WE study, the letter has been sent from the committee with the questions that committee members had with regard to Victor Li and his counsel. We will expect that those will be responded to according to the instructions by committee. We will continue to keep committee members informed. I just wanted to inform you that we are on track, or at least we've done our part in terms of getting those out to him. We will inform committee members if we hear anything back from Victor Li.

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

A point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Yes, Mr. Angus.

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

One of the things that concerned me in the letter from the lawyers from the Kielburger brothers was that they said that nobody from WE leadership would participate. I would place the CFO, Mr. Victor Li, as one of the WE leadership. Do we have a sense that he's willing to continue to work with us, or did this letter from the Kielburger brothers include Mr. Victor Li as no longer being willing to provide information on the finances of the organization?