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.
12:30 p.m.
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
You were the Chair of the Board of WE Charity, after all.
Canada's Finance Minister travelled with the charity. The trip cost about $100,000. They said that he had already paid $50,000 and that $43,000 remained to be invoiced to him. They are no longer sure. Yet these are quite significant expenses for a prominent figure.
Was the board of directors not aware of it?
12:30 p.m.
Former Chair of the Board of Directors, WE Charity, As an Individual
I do know that thousands of people travelled every year to our international development locations and communities with whom we worked closely, but on the actual particulars of payments for family members or costs or elements of their trip, that is not a detail.... The board of directors would see more oversight or aggregate information and not something quite as specific as that.
So I don't know what exactly his invoice would have related to. I was aware that he went to Equador.
12:30 p.m.
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
In your opinion, who at WE Charity could answer these questions?
12:30 p.m.
Former Chair of the Board of Directors, WE Charity, As an Individual
I would expect that the executive director of WE Charity or ME to WE or perhaps the co-founders could answer that question with precision.
12:30 p.m.
Bloc
12:30 p.m.
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
What is the name of the executive director you are telling us about?
12:30 p.m.
Former Chair of the Board of Directors, WE Charity, As an Individual
The executive director I'm referring to is Ms. Dalal Al-Waheidi, the executive director of WE Charity. The executive director of ME to WE is Mr. Russ McLeod.
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
We will have to end it there.
We'll go to Mr. Angus, followed by Mr. Barrett.
Charlie, you're up.
12:30 p.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Madam Douglas. Thank you for your public service. It's really important.
My daughters went to Free the Children when they were, probably, in grades 4, 5 and 6. It changed their lives. My oldest said it set her on a course for human rights activism.
But that's a very, very different group, when they were all young and idealistic, to what we have today, which I find very hard to get my head around—the multiple corporations, the mass real estate dealings, the various what's for profit, what's for public. Therefore, governance is a really, really important question. Governance is super important when we're talking about a deal with the federal government that may be close to a billion dollars. We need governance and oversight.
I'm very concerned about the situation that was happening with your board in March. You said you were trying to get answers; there were mass layoffs taking place. Would you say, in the conversation with Marc Kielburger by teleconference, that he was not forthcoming, that he was getting angry?
12:30 p.m.
Former Chair of the Board of Directors, WE Charity, As an Individual
I had a number of telephone calls during the period of mid-March—actually, I think starting on March 9, but most particularly mid-March—with Marc Kielburger and almost always Dalal Al-Waheidi. I was joined by my U.S. board chair colleague and counterpart Dr. Jonathan White.
Certainly my sense of this is that the organization was feeling intense pressure from the impact of COVID. It was having serious impacts. I mentioned before the closing of schools, the ending of WE Days, the completion of travel and that kind of thing. We were pushing for information. We were told that information was available. We didn't ask for power points or anything new, just simply the information that we were told regularly was being generated on a daily basis. That information was never provided, although we asked.
12:35 p.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
We're talking about mass layoffs, hundreds of people, in an organization that is now very much in crisis. Was there a meeting in which Marc Kielburger hung up the phone, and was that what precipitated Craig Kielburger calling you and asking you to resign?
12:35 p.m.
Former Chair of the Board of Directors, WE Charity, As an Individual
I would say there was one particularly dramatic or memorable meeting on or about March 23, when I had asked for the ad hoc committee that I mentioned to be convened. I, the U.S. board chair and two others attended that meeting by phone. I demanded that the executive team produce those records. I gave a short turnaround time, I think later that day or early the next morning. I'll simply say that the call was abruptly concluded.
12:35 p.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
So he hung up and then his brother called and asked for your resignation.
The only reason I'm asking to get into this is that the Canadian people have given this organization close to a billion dollars and we need to know that this is an organization that has a proper structure, that it's not just the Kielburger brothers and their family, but that there is oversight. I would say that we were all very shocked that contrary to what the Liberals have been saying on this committee, the WE Charity is not overseeing this program, but a shell company, the WE Charity Foundation. When I look into the WE foundation, I don't see a governance structure in place, other than it looks as though it's people who work for the Kielburgers, and its stated aim is holding real estate. It has no assets.
You said you had concerns about WE foundation. What were your concerns?
12:35 p.m.
Former Chair of the Board of Directors, WE Charity, As an Individual
The executive team brought forward the idea that a foundation would be a good idea and presented it to the board of directors in approximately 2018. The board had a number of concerns. We simply didn't have enough information.
I considered this matter personally quite deeply, thinking about the interests of stakeholders and contributors to the organization, frankly, and thinking about all the youth who had done fundraising. I wanted to understand in a manner that was crystal clear why such a foundation would exist and what its purpose would be. Ultimately, no resolution was brought before the board to consider whether that should be established. I think the board did not have satisfactory information at that time.
12:35 p.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
—a holding company set up that the board's trying to get answers about. There's no oversight, and yet this is where the Kielburger brothers decide to funnel $900 million. It certainly protects them from liability, but there is no oversight mechanism, as far as I can see. Would you say that's a fair understanding of how this foundation is set up?
12:35 p.m.
Former Chair of the Board of Directors, WE Charity, As an Individual
I don't know the particulars of the structure around this foundation, so I'm really not well placed to talk about its capacity to do any work. I just don't know enough about it.
12:35 p.m.
Former Chair of the Board of Directors, WE Charity, As an Individual
It did not to my knowledge.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Thank you, Mr. Angus.
I do, I think, have to point out, Mr. Angus, that you said this charity had been given a billion dollars. I wouldn't want there to be improper information out there. Basically, the government would provide up to $912—
12:35 p.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
It was nine hundred and twelve million. You're so correct, Mr. Chair.