Evidence of meeting #41 for Finance in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was volunteer.
A video is available from Parliament.
5 p.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Thank you so much.
We're here for two reasons. One is, certainly, the connections to the Trudeau family, which raised a lot of alarm bells, but also the sense that because of the close connection between the Kielburgers and the Prime Minister they got the inside track. If there was a proposal that influenced the Prime Minister and you were doing your due diligence as a civil servant—
5 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Charlie, I don't want to interrupt, but hold up your mike. The translators are having a bit of difficulty, and we want to hear the pureness of your voice.
5 p.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Thank you, Wayne. I'm so sorry. Who has ever said that I wasn't loud enough? You're the first.
The question is whether or not WE got the inside track. If there was a proposal that the Prime Minister loved and then he laid out the basic parameters so that, when you called three days later, Kielburger already had the ideas and was set to go.... Is it possible that, because they had already circulated this, the Prime Minister set it up and you dutifully followed through?
5 p.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development
Mr. Chair, I cannot speculate, but I can tell you that, in the context I was in, mid-April in a crisis situation, I gave some options and assessments to inform the announcement by the Prime Minister on April 22, based on my expertise and experience with various organizations and based on an understanding that there was a desire to launch this initiative within three weeks, because it was a summer initiative that students needed to start taking advantage of as quickly as possible.
5:05 p.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Thank you for that. I just wanted to really clarify your position in how this has played out, because Minister Chagger said a number of times that this was your idea, that you came up with it, and I don't want you to be wearing this if this was a political decision. I wanted to just clarify that, so I thank you for that.
The question was raised again about the Trudeau family links. I asked Minister Chagger if this was raised. It seems to me something that would have been red-flagged, because of the close connection with the Trudeau family and the fact that his mother, brother and wife were closely involved.
Did you raise the Trudeau family connection as a red flag?
5:05 p.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development
Mr. Chair, I don't have any direct knowledge of that. As I mentioned, the department does not provide assessments of potential conflicts of interest by public office holders. The onus is on those office-holders to uphold the guidelines.
5:05 p.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
I understand that. When you're making a proposal, you're going to have pluses and minuses and this blew up in the government's face, so I was wondering who raised those red flags.
Now just about the financing, because we heard of $19.5 million and then of $43 million.... I'm not interested in that number, but in the per-student placement, the other values that would have been identified. The minister said it would come out later.
What was the agreement for onboarding fees and training that we would do? How much could they get per placement?
5:05 p.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development
Mr. Chair, as I mentioned and as I think my colleagues have mentioned, contribution agreements lay out the funding and the broad policy objectives and desired results. Then it is for the third party to make decisions about how they achieve those results.
5:05 p.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Were there other fees? This is what I'm concerned about: due diligence and performance measures. You said you needed a website that had a lot of bang. We found out that when it opened, there were 1,500 bogus placements on it.
Did you do due diligence on that, or was it something that came up from WE?
5:05 p.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development
I think there is not a sufficient understanding of the digital aspects of this.
When we were asked by the government to create the “I Want to Help” platform, our first reflex was to look at our job bank technology. ESDC had made significant investments in the job bank infrastructure and it met security and official language requirements. That was the first phase of work on the platform. In the course of—
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
5:05 p.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development
In the course of negotiating the contribution agreement, there were additional requirements that came forward with respect to registering students' desire for the tracking of hours. There were also issues around validating not-for-profits, such as, whether they were registered charities.
There was a lot of desire to collect data about the students so that we could report.
5:05 p.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development
As I mentioned in my statement, there was significant technological capacity required to ensure both the program requirements and eligibility requirements, and that due diligence was being done to vet and ensure that students were going to safe, legitimate placements.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
5:05 p.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Thank you. I'm thankful for the answer.
I was asking about the 1,500 bogus placements and due diligence in that regard, but my final question would be in response to what I asked Madam Chagger about the possible illegalities of paying post-secondary students well below minimum wage to do work that would be considered paid work, which would put charities into issues of legal liability because they cannot transgress the—
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
5:05 p.m.
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
Sorry, Mr. Angus and Mr. Chair.
The interpreter is indicating that she can't interpret what Mr. Angus is saying. I think the problem is that his mouth is too far from the microphone.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Okay. I think, Mr. Angus, you're not holding your mike up again. The translators were having trouble and were telling Mr. Fortin that, which is good.
Start over.
5:10 p.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Okay. I'll just finish the question then.
This plan that would have had post-secondary students making well below minimum wage and calling it “volunteering” would have put charities at risk of legal liability if a student said it was actually paid work. Therefore, I asked the minister if she had done due diligence and gotten a legal opinion on that. She said, “I'm confident that the public service would have done their due diligence and would have requested legal opinions.”
Madam Wernick, did you get a legal opinion that this plan paying students so much below minimum wage would meet the legal tests under provincial labour laws?
5:10 p.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development
Yes, Mr. Chair, I need to clarify that this was a lump sum financial award like a bursary at the end of the summer. It was not an hourly wage.
That was the nature of the grant.
5:10 p.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
That's not how you presented it. You presented it that if they did 100 hours, they got $1,000. If they did 170 hours, they still only got $1,000. They got paid by how much work they did. That's an hourly wage. That's the legal question.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Okay, we'll have to conclude it there. I'll let Ms. Wernick answer.
I thought Ms. Hébert wanted in earlier, but go ahead, Ms. Wernick.