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.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
—million to be funnelled through on the CSSG grants, from which they would be provided an administration fee of $43 million, just so the record is absolutely clear on this controversial issue.
We'll go to Mr. Barrett, followed by Mr. Fraser.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Thank you, ma'am, for your testimony today and for your service to Canada in uniform, of course, and in the public service as well.
What was your understanding of the purpose of establishing the WE Charity foundation?
12:40 p.m.
Former Chair of the Board of Directors, WE Charity, As an Individual
At the time the board considered the matter, it was said to be for the possible purpose of holding real property assets, but I don't have a memory of its object or purpose beyond that.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Are you aware of how many entities exist under the WE banner or are operated by the founders? There are a number of these: charities, foundations, numbered companies. Do you know how many there are?
12:40 p.m.
Former Chair of the Board of Directors, WE Charity, As an Individual
If you put it that way, I don't know the actual number, no.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Do you have an estimation that you'd be prepared to offer?
12:40 p.m.
Former Chair of the Board of Directors, WE Charity, As an Individual
I'm not sure I could provide that with any precision. Certainly, the organization will be better placed to provide that kind of information.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Okay.
Does the board have any oversight of any of those entities?
12:40 p.m.
Former Chair of the Board of Directors, WE Charity, As an Individual
I don't think there's specific oversight. If there's a related corporation that requires our oversight—here, I'm thinking of the organization Imagine 1 Day, which was kind of integrated into the WE Charity organization. There was a separate board constructed, but most entities would have their own standing board of directors.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
So, in your understanding, who oversees or controls the WE Charity Foundation?
12:40 p.m.
Former Chair of the Board of Directors, WE Charity, As an Individual
I don't know those details because I was not involved in setting up the entity, in any detail. I was aware it existed, of course—it's referred to in the 2018 audited financial statements—but it's my understanding that, at that time, it hadn't had any operations.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Can you explain what role a founder has in this organization, if the founder is not an executive director or a trustee or a CFO? Where does “founder” fit in, in the organizational chart?
12:40 p.m.
Former Chair of the Board of Directors, WE Charity, As an Individual
Well, I think it's a titular title that someone would have who establishes or is the founder of an entity. In this case, they had significant governance power because the bylaws allowed them to make decisions on essentially dismissing the board of directors, or obligated the board of directors to refer to the founders and inform and consult them on significant directional shifts in the organization. So the founders did have governance power in that sense. Certainly Marc Kielburger, and rarely Craig Kielburger, attended most board of director meetings with the executive director.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Thank you. I want to circle back to the subject of the board.
I want to ask you about a June 2019 article that was published in CANADALAND. I'm sure you're familiar with it.
I'd like to know if you are familiar with it, and specifically if you're aware of any allegations of abuse or bullying at the charity. That article did detail specific allegations by former employees of the organization and some of their experiences and comments related specifically to Mr. Marc Kielburger. Are you aware of any of that?
12:40 p.m.
Former Chair of the Board of Directors, WE Charity, As an Individual
The board of directors looked into this quite significantly. We were troubled by what we had read and wanted to know the facts about the situation. We did have a number of meetings, or some meetings, about this. We asked for an accounting from the executive director. We had the benefit of reading reports from the organization.
Later, to bring it to today, I saw others reporting concerning allegations. This didn't feel very good to me in the sense that I'm troubled if someone did not have a good employee experience, but I personally never saw anything from Marc that directly concerned me.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
We'll have to end it there.
Sorry, Mr. Barrett.
We turn now to Mr. Fraser followed by Mr. Cooper.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Thank you very much, Ms. Douglas, for joining us today. Thank you for your service. Might I just add that the LGBT purge in the military is a stain on our nation's history that I continue to be ashamed of? I am just so sorry for your experience in that regard.
12:45 p.m.
Former Chair of the Board of Directors, WE Charity, As an Individual
Thank you.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Turning to the matter at hand, I have a couple of questions about what the ordinary practice would look like. You said you have no personal knowledge of the Canada student service grant.
Over the past number of years as a local MP or in my role as a parliamentary secretary, I've dealt with proposals that come in from groups who want to do this or that or who have an idea. Some of them, frankly, are pipe dreams from people who have no experience putting proposals together. Others come from well-established organizations with national reputations that can actually turn into great ideas.
I wonder if you could, just in your own words, describe what an ordinary process would be like for the WE Charity to provide a proposal to a provincial or federal government.
12:45 p.m.
Former Chair of the Board of Directors, WE Charity, As an Individual
Right. This was very much a process managed by staff at the organization. They would be identifying needs and the opportunity to potentially fill a need by providing services, or looking for open calls for grants and things of that nature. The actual working process of this was done internally, so I think the next witnesses could provide more oversight or more information on that.
But there was process, and the staff would normally work that up. If it were quite a substantial grant—for example, one grant of $3 million—the board would be well informed about that.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Okay.
Obviously, some internal work would go into developing some kind of proposal to meet these social needs that the charity would identify. I intend to ask this same question of our next panellists: In terms of the pitch that would eventually be made to government, who would normally be involved in that kind of process?
12:45 p.m.
Former Chair of the Board of Directors, WE Charity, As an Individual
From my understanding, and I didn't see this up close and directly, it would be managed by the executive director, who would have overall responsibility. We did have a government relations expert within the organization.
As for the actual pitch, potentially Marc or Craig Kielburger may be involved, but I think it just depended on the scope and size of the proposal.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Sure. That's helpful information.
On the government relations side of things, one thing I find both interesting and a little bit curious about WE as an organization is that a lot of the charities I deal with go through great pains to remain non-partisan. I find that WE Charity has been, if anything, multipartisan. They embrace governments of different political stripes. We've had pictures of different MPs and party leaders with the Kielburger family at WE Charity events.
I'm curious if this was a strategy that was actually adopted by the board, or was it something that was done independently by the founders of the organization? Could you shed some light on that multipartisan approach to program development and government relations?
12:45 p.m.
Former Chair of the Board of Directors, WE Charity, As an Individual
Yes. This was not a matter that was discussed extensively by the board, but it was always our view, at least on the board of directors, that we were indeed non-partisan, which had the potential of engaging any government—provincial, municipal or federal. Certainly, I did not see this as multipartisan, but rather non-partisan, as an organization.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Sure. I don't mean to suggest there would an effort to ingratiate the organization with one party or another, but only that there was seemingly a complete lack of fear about engaging with different parties and governments.
What I am essentially trying to figure out here is the tie between how the organization would develop these pitches and use contacts that they may have developed through this government relations strategy to actually get the attention of decision-makers on different potential policies. It seems as though a mix of different processes may have been used, with some internal development and some informal outreach, and eventually some conversation between someone at the organization and the government.
From what you've seen or have learned about the Canada student service grant, I am curious to know whether the origin story of this program is reflective, in your opinion, of other programs that perhaps were successfully funded by different governments at different levels.