Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Again, I appreciate Ms. Gaudreau's comment.
It continued:
Moreover, neither Marc nor Craig Kielburger have received any form of salary from WE Charity or its predecessor, Free the Children.
I also contend and suggest to you, Chair, that the opposition members know fully—they would never admit this publicly and certainly not in front of members of the media—that this is nothing more than a red herring. It's nothing more than trying to throw dirt, to dig it up, in a thinly concealed and thinly disguised campaign to try to embarrass the government.
I'm not here to defend the WE Charity or the Kielburgers. I said that at the outset. I believe that they are more than capable of making their own defence. I do, however, take great exception to the notion that's still being promoted on this fishing trip of a study, which is that somehow the ESDC officials are engaging in some sort of cover-up to protect political members and their staff.
Not only is this argument extremely harmful to our professional public servants who have faithfully served governments of all stripes, but it has absolutely no basis in fact. There's not one iota of evidence to suggest that the testimony of the senior public servants who serve, irrespective of whatever government is in power, was anything but the truth.
I use this word very cautiously, but I must. I'm appalled that the opposition members have not issued an apology to the public servants who, in the midst of the pandemic, pulled together, with the private sector, a program that would have helped thousands of youth have an enjoyable, productive experience in volunteering for groups across the country.
I would like to remind members of Ms. Wernick's testimony at committee, where she said:
Our experience with the Canada service corps program had taught us many things about the key ingredients for a successful youth service initiative. First, to engage in [a] service the majority of youth—in particular, youth who are under-represented and who are from groups facing barriers—require additional supports ranging from orientation to mentoring to wraparound supports.
Secondly, the biggest influencers of youth are other youth. The success of the initiative required a strong start, whereby a large number of meaningful opportunities would be available to immediately grab youths' interest, so they would spread the word with their friends. Youth do not come to government websites, no matter how well we build them. There was a need for active outreach to find youth where they were. Promotion and communications tailored to a younger audience and that would reach them through all social media platforms were essential.
We know how important social media platforms are, although I believe there are more youth on Instagram and TikTok, which I'm still not sure how to operate sometimes, and less on Facebook. She continued:
The purpose was to create a digital platform that allowed for registration of students and not-for-profit organizations, including directly inputting information, logging and tracking of hours, and matching of students with opportunities.
This required analysis of what technological capability would be required, how it would meet all government requirements for bilingualism, accessibility and protection of personal information, and how to ensure the system [Technical difficulty—Editor]
She continued:
The third party needed massive speed, reach and scale, an ability to quickly mobilize the whole country. The third party needed a demonstrated track record—