Evidence of meeting #45 for Finance in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was sir.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Michelle Douglas  Former Chair of the Board of Directors, WE Charity, As an Individual
Clerk of the Committee  Ms. Caroline Bosc
Marc Kielburger  Founder, WE Charity
Craig Kielburger  Founder, WE Charity

2:50 p.m.

Conservative

Marty Morantz Conservative Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB

Did you hire those 450 people before the—

2:50 p.m.

Founder, WE Charity

Marc Kielburger

Actually, I have it; I apologize. Just to be very clear, we had 390 employees and, just with the difficult decisions we had to make with the pandemic—

2:50 p.m.

Founder, WE Charity

Craig Kielburger

Sorry, I think it was—

2:50 p.m.

Conservative

Marty Morantz Conservative Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB

No, I'm talking about hirings related to the agreement.

2:50 p.m.

Founder, WE Charity

Marc Kielburger

My apologies—

2:50 p.m.

Founder, WE Charity

Craig Kielburger

We will give you the numbers of who—

2:50 p.m.

Conservative

Marty Morantz Conservative Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB

But when did you start to hire those people in order to execute on the yet-unsigned contribution agreement?

2:50 p.m.

Founder, WE Charity

Craig Kielburger

We started reaching out, prior to its being signed, to ask if people were available pretty quickly because we had to know if we had enough staff.

2:50 p.m.

Conservative

Marty Morantz Conservative Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB

Did you hire anyone, though, before it was signed?

2:50 p.m.

Founder, WE Charity

Craig Kielburger

We probably did, yes. Then we would have—

2:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

This is your last question, Mr. Morantz.

2:50 p.m.

Conservative

Marty Morantz Conservative Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB

Could you let us know how many people you hired before the agreement was signed?

2:50 p.m.

Founder, WE Charity

Craig Kielburger

We can get that to you.

2:50 p.m.

Conservative

Marty Morantz Conservative Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB

Thank you.

2:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

Thank you, all.

I'll just give you the lineup.

Marc and Craig, you can take a break while I go through the list here. We'll come back at 4:01.

The lineup for questions will be this: Mr. McLeod first, Mr. Fortin next, only for two and a half minutes.... Can somebody check his technology to make sure it's going to work? I believe Mr. Julian is on for the final two and a half minutes. Then we have five-minute rounds: Mr. Poilievre, Mr. Sorbara, Mr. Barrett and Ms. Dzerowicz.

That's the lineup when we come back. We'll be back at 4:01.

2:50 p.m.

The Clerk

No, it's 3:01.

2:50 p.m.

Liberal

Julie Dzerowicz Liberal Davenport, ON

It's 3:01 Ottawa time.

2:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

Yes, I'm looking at my clock. I'm ahead of you guys by an hour. It's 3:01 Ottawa time. We'll suspend until then.

Thank you.

The meeting is suspended.

3:02 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

We will reconvene. I'll recall the meeting to order, and hopefully Marc and Craig will appear there shortly.

While we're waiting for them, I'll just give people an update: Mr. McLeod will be up first for five minutes, then Mr. Fortin for two and a half, Mr. Julian for two and a half, Mr. Poilievre for five, Mr. Sorbara for five.

Do you have a way of contacting the Kielburgers there? Maybe they took my time, 4:01. Oh, there they are.

Good, gentlemen. Just to give you a heads-up, the interpreters are still having a little difficulty with your mike, especially for Craig, so maybe keep it a little closer, if you could. It's coming through a little soft.

Mr. McLeod, you're in an earlier part of the country. You and Mr. Julian are in a different, earlier time zone. We'll go with you for five minutes.

3:02 p.m.

Liberal

Michael McLeod Liberal Northwest Territories, NT

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to say thank you to the presenters. Four hours is a long time to be sitting and answering questions, and we appreciate your coming forward. We're hearing a lot of information, so I appreciate that.

As an MP, I represent the Northwest Territories, and I have to admit that we have a limited presence in the north with WE Charity. It's certainly a complex organization, and it has become very apparent that it's supported by all parties, and all parties have people who have participated with WE. There's been a lot of media attention on your organization paying for high-profile individuals to travel on WE trips to other countries, such as in Africa, to see the impact of WE's global projects.

You said in a statement a few days ago that WE has invited several people—ambassadors and other people—to participate in these trips, and this is something that many international charities and humanitarian agencies do. They operate in a similar manner.

Could you tell us if WE Charity has taken Conservative or other parties, whether it be Conservative or NDP politicians, in the past to go on some of these trips? That's my first question.

3:05 p.m.

Founder, WE Charity

Craig Kielburger

Yes, sir, we appreciate that service is not a political issue—hopefully it's not a political issue—and that many politicians have joined us in service. Scott Moe—and I say this not to get him into any trouble, in fact the exact opposite, but I know he's getting some flak for this, which is unfortunate—came and worked like crazy over the winter break, helped to build, to teach, to serve with his wife, and that's how he chose to help build at our college. He chose to teach at our college in Kenya. He was helping out at our medical projects that we have there.

People like Charlie Angus, for example, his own children have joined us in the past, in Nicaragua. We appreciate, sir, that their commitment has been.... It's not a political issue when someone's children join us, and they've helped to build and teach and serve. We welcome people from all walks of life, who benefit through doing this type of service projects that we're able to provide.

3:05 p.m.

Liberal

Michael McLeod Liberal Northwest Territories, NT

I was quite impressed when I looked at your organization, and it's very complex. It has many parts to it, many different subsidiaries. It also has many partnerships. The one that came to the forefront for me, as an indigenous person, was the aboriginal education initiative and the We Stand Together campaign, promoting indigenous history in the classrooms and creating awareness of first nations, Inuit and Métis realities facing our communities. It's something I talk about on a non-stop basis. It is very important to me.

I was very impressed with the number of people who come to your organization and speak on these initiatives. Could you maybe clarify it for me, when people come and do a cross-Canada speaking tour—I'm taking that not to be a WE Day but an auxiliary event that you spoke about—and they do get compensated, or their expenses get compensated? I think it's important that we separate the WE Day engagements from the auxiliary events, so people can understand that.

3:05 p.m.

Founder, WE Charity

Craig Kielburger

Absolutely, sir, and thank you for raising that.

Our global work has been well documented: 1,500 schools and classrooms around the world, clean water, medical for about a million people that we've been able to establish around the world.

Not as well known sometimes is our domestic work. I think that's sometimes misunderstood. For example, Sacred Circle is a program that we've now run for over a decade. It was actually Shawn Atleo who was the person who helped us to frame it. It's a leadership training program for indigenous youth, most often in fly-in communities in Canada, to help young people be social entrepreneurs, to identify a problem in their own communities and then to be the heroes of their problem and help to solve that issue.

Likewise, WE Stand Together, sir, which you identified, is an educational program run in Canadian schools to teach non-indigenous students to better understand the past, present and future of indigenous students in Canada. In fact, part of what we have been doing in Canada has been trying to build these various systems to help young entrepreneurs in Canada.

It's something that has been, unfortunately, misunderstood. In Toronto, we've established a series of buildings to retrofit to create free space to welcome young entrepreneurs to set up their own charities with their own social enterprises. Unfortunately, because of COVID-19, it's on pause. These are the types of innovative projects that, in Canada, we try to do to serve youth.

You're right, sir, that our operation is complex, because, in our hearts, we're entrepreneurs. We create new systems. We want to build to create.

3:05 p.m.

Founder, WE Charity

Marc Kielburger

Yes, and we also started when we were kids. Craig was 12. I was 17. It's kind of like building a house. You have a small little house and you add a wing, then you add a skylight and then you add a little makeshift swimming pool for your kids.

Yes, we recognize that we do have a complex organization. That's why we're bringing in Korn Ferry to help us. This wasn't done out of malice or anything like that. It was just done as—

July 28th, 2020 / 3:05 p.m.

Founder, WE Charity

Craig Kielburger

I think five years—