Finance Committee on July 30th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

You have time for a last question, Mr. Fortin.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Did you also know that the Minister of Finance had travelled on WE's dime, that WE had paid for his trip?

[Katie Telford]

No, we did not know that or discuss that at that time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay. Thank you, both.

Mr. Julian, the floor is yours, and you will be followed by—if it's okay with the committee—Ms. May.

Mr. Julian, go ahead.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Prime Minister's testimony seems to be collapsing like a house of cards. First he said he didn't know anything, and then he said that they all did their due diligence, but to date we have not had a single indication of what due diligence was done.

These positions were advertised as volunteer jobs, yet that of course would violate both minimum wage laws across the country and labour standards legislation. To what extent was due diligence done on this project, this scheme, to assure that it was in conformity and legal according to minimum wage laws and labour standards across the country?

[Katie Telford]

Look, a memorandum does not go to cabinet without due diligence being done, and it was then held up so that extra layers of due diligence were done to ensure that everyone felt comfortable recommending it to cabinet a second time.

As I've already said, this didn't go the way it should have gone. There are additional layers of scrutiny or questions, knowing what we know now, that would have been good to ask at the time, but we only knew what we knew then.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Has the RCMP contacted the PMO, any officials in the Prime Minister's Office, so far, since the scandal broke?

[Katie Telford]

No.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

I'm going to switch languages now.

This is the third time this has happened. After the first scandal, the Prime Minister said that, if he had it to do over again, he would have done things differently. He would've reached out to the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner from the outset to have everything they were doing and did approved.

Indeed, none of that happened.

Since the Prime Minister had supposedly learned his lesson from the previous controversies, scandals, why wasn't it obvious the third time around that all the applicable procedures and laws had not been followed?

[Katie Telford]

We talk to the Ethics Commissioner's office all the time, or I wouldn't be able to tell you that we received clearance from the Ethics Commissioner's office for the work that Sophie Grégoire Trudeau was doing with the WE organization.

I can tell you that it is an office that everybody in our office respects, that we take very seriously and that we go back and forth with on a very frequent basis.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

It was actually a very straightforward question. Who at the Prime Minister's Office is in charge of making sure that these laws are followed, not flouted?

Is it the Prime Minister? Is it you?

Who is responsible for the fact that the laws governing our country are being violated?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

That will be the end of that round, Mr. Julian.

Go ahead, Ms. Telford.

[Katie Telford]

I will repeat what I stated before, which is that the Prime Minister has never received any payment, any income of any kind, from the WE organization, both before and since becoming Prime Minister. That was something we were clear on, and that we had gone to the Ethics Commissioner in terms of the potential involvement. We went before there was any involvement. We got it signed off ahead of time in terms of Sophie's involvement, in terms of podcasts, in terms of potential travel, in terms of potential expenses.

We take those steps very seriously.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you.

Do we have any objection to allowing Ms. May in for a couple of minutes?

Who do I go to in the official opposition after her, if she's allowed to question?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

It will be Michael Barrett.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay. Thank you.

Ms. May, you've been at every meeting. Go ahead. You have a couple of minutes.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you, colleagues.

I just want to say, for Canadians who may find it hard to believe, that civil servants and cabinet ministers and everybody, including a bunch of us on this screen, worked 20-hour days, seven days a week, at the beginning of the pandemic. We all witnessed it.

I don't want to let the remark that you made, Ms. Telford, go forward without corroboration. You guys all worked.... You were killing yourselves in this period, but that doesn't mean we can't investigate.

I find it hard to believe that the Prime Minister was.... I'm not doubting that he did, actually; I just want to know. He seems very convinced that he thought Canada service corps was going to deliver this program up until May 8. He'd announced it on April 22. From the testimony of civil servants, including Rachel Wernick, we knew that they were considering WE before the announcement, at least a week before the announcement, and that on May 5, as we know, Minister Chagger took it to the COVID committee, clearly putting the WE Charity as the agency to deliver this.

Can you explain how it's possible...? Did no one want to tell the Prime Minister, to burst his bubble and tell him, that his favourite operation, Canada service corps, was just not going to be able to do it? Why did no one tell him before May 8 that Canada service corps was out of it and WE Charity was delivering the program?

[Katie Telford]

To be fair, that was a question he had on May 8 as well and it's why this was pulled back. It's so that he could get a better understanding of things. It partly speaks to the speed and volume of work during that period, as well as to other events during that period that I know I don't need to remind anyone about. It has been an incredible time, above and beyond the pandemic, given what this country has been going through.

One thing that may help clarify this is in the package that I was referencing earlier, from April 20, I believe. It was the very large package, which came ahead of the announcement, that had the nine annexes to it. Annex four, page 5, mentions the Canada summer student grant and talks about the potential need at that point, because that was all that was written into it at that time, for a third party to make this work. It gave some examples of delivery agents and administrators, that kind of thing. WE was one of the examples in there at that time, but it was an example of a potential method of doing it.

That was as far as it had come. We knew people were working on these things. The Canada service corps was still on his mind and was still in the mix, and we didn't actually see the return on their further work on that until May 8.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay, I will have to end it there. Thank you, Elizabeth.

We'll go to back to five-minute rounds with Mr. Barrett, who will be followed by Mr. Sorbara.

Go ahead, Mr. Barrett.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Ma'am, you said a handful of people spoke to WE before the agreement was announced. You've given one name. Who are the other four?

[Katie Telford]

I already said there were some communications staff around the time of what was a big announcement and launch, so it's perfectly normal for our communications staff to go back and forth with those involved.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

What were their names, Ma'am?

[Katie Telford]

I said I would look into that for you.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Do you commit today to providing those names to the committee and the dates on which they communicated with the WE organization?

[Katie Telford]

I will look into it. I can consult with folks.