Finance Committee on July 30th, 2020

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

From March 1 until now, when did you speak with the Prime Minister about the WE organization?

[Katie Telford]

On May 8, we first learned that the WE organization was being proposed as the organization to deliver and administer this program, so that is when we spoke about it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, both.

We'll turn now to Ms. Dzerowicz, for six minutes, followed by Mr. Fortin.

Ms. Dzerowicz.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Telford, for joining us today. We really are grateful. We always remember to thank our ministers, our Prime Minister, our bureaucrats, but we often forget the amazing team of people who sit in the Prime Minister's Office, so I want to say a huge thanks to you and the amazing team there. I can only imagine how crazy the last few months have been, so thank you for your extraordinary effort.

You rightly talked about how we've gone through an unprecedented time and that the impact on Canadians has been extraordinary. We have asked our politicians, our civil servants, and our staff to work at an extraordinary pace to deliver over 70 emergency programs, with spending of over $200 billion.

This is just a general question: Were there any additional processes put in place, or any special oversight mechanisms because of the increased level of spending and the speed of the decision-making?

[Katie Telford]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

That's actually one of the things my team and I have been reflecting upon in this last period of time, whether additional rigour could be put in place even in a time of crisis.

Our focus, for the reasons you mentioned and the reasons I gave in my opening statement, has been on getting support to Canadians as quickly as we can and to as many as we can. That does not mean—and this is why we held up the proposal on May 8—that rigour does not need to be applied. We know that rigour has been being applied by the public service throughout and by staff in ministers' offices and ministers throughout.

Obviously, however, things have moved in compressed time periods, and thus the time isn't necessarily spent in the same way as in the past. We need to think about how to ensure that we continue to have the rigour we would have in a normal time in a time of crisis as well.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you for that.

Many questions have come up at our committee around the change in the WE board, the layoffs that took place and whether or not WE had registered as a lobbyist. We have heard, and we have a lot of confidence, that our bureaucrats have done their due diligence. I just want to make sure that Canadians understand what the responsibility of the bureaucrats is vis-à-vis what actually comes to cabinet.

If you could elaborate on that, I'd be grateful.

I want to make one more point, just because I think we received a little bit of misinformation. We heard from Rachel Wernick that eight organizations were assessed by ESDC officials to potentially deliver the CSSG. We also heard that ESDC officials held two calls with the Canada service corps to discuss this particular program. Could you speak to how people can understand that division?

[Katie Telford]

Especially at this time, everyone was rolling up their sleeves and working on a number of different projects at once, and various departments were supporting each other with their work in truly unprecedented ways.

What ultimately comes to cabinet is a memorandum to cabinet that summarizes those recommendations, summarizes the due diligence that has been done. It was there that we saw the recommendation saying that there is this one organization that is able to deliver this program.

One of the differences is that all kinds of briefing notes go back and forth between departments on all kinds of details within the memorandum to cabinet; these were looking at some of the assessments you described. I know you've had officials come to committee who have described them. There's all kinds of work done between ministers' offices and departments leading up to the memorandum to cabinet, which then summarizes the information they've put together and makes a recommendation to cabinet.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you.

I know there was a lot of anxiety to ensure that the programs for youth were accelerated as fast as possible. Can you describe to us your understanding of what was behind the Prime Minister's motivation to deliver the program as fast as possible—the CSSG program as well as all the other student programs that were introduced?

[Katie Telford]

The April 5 conversation I referred to was a relatively brief conversation, but it does, I think, summarize an answer to what you're asking. We talked about the fact that there were gaps in our existing programs and that key parts of our population weren't yet getting the support they needed. As I mentioned, we have talked about seniors, we've talked about seasonal workers, and in this case we talked about students.

When it came to students, first and foremost, job one was how to help those students who all of a sudden found themselves heading into summer. Not only was there a pandemic, but it was the end of their school year, or it was about to be. How do we help those students who had rent to pay and who needed to put groceries on the table?

Then our second objective, a very important one, was.... We were starting already to see research and stories being told and people telling us directly about the impact. I heard some members talking about this in the committee with the Prime Minister earlier as well. I know you all recognize, because you hear it from your constituents, the concerns around mental health for young people—the concern about wanting to make sure we don't have a lost generation here that has to spend years catching up from this period of time.

We wanted to see in what ways we could ensure that we were connecting young people to their communities, and we were encouraging people to be innovative in that regard. This is something the Prime Minister has talked about for a long time as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We'll have to move on, Ms. Telford.

We'll turn to Mr. Fortin, for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Telford, the Prime Minister has already been found to have broken the ethics rules twice: once involving the Aga Khan and once involving SNC-Lavalin. It didn't end there. When the time came to make a decision on WE's involvement, initially, the Prime Minister said he postponed the meeting—the decision—because he wasn't comfortable. You confirmed that was the case; you felt there was a possible conflict of interest.

How do you explain the fact that he has been caught, yet again, with his hand in the cookie jar, despite all the red flags that were right in front of him?

[Katie Telford]

Mr. Chair, I have to reject what the member is saying about what happened here, other than his opening comments, which were that the Prime Minister did have concerns at the meeting on May 8 when he was first briefed on this. He said that he wanted to get more information by way of briefing, and that's what he did.

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

After receiving that new information, he was reassured. He thought there was no longer a conflict of interest. However, here you are today, in it up to your necks. How do you explain that?

[Katie Telford]

We were reassured that the only way this program could happen this summer in this unprecedented time was for the WE organization to administer and deliver it. That was the reassurance we were given, and at that point it was determined that it should proceed.

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

The head of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, however, told us that the public service could have easily administered the program. Do you disagree with him?

[Katie Telford]

I'm sorry, but what—

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Ms. Telford, I believe Mr. Fortin might not have come through in interpretation.

It was the president of the Public Service Alliance, I believe, who said the public service could deliver it, was it not, Rhéal? That was the question. The president of the Public Service Alliance indicated that the public service could deliver it. Why not?

[Katie Telford]

We were briefed at the time, on more than one occasion during that period and based on other experiences, that this was the only way the program could be delivered this summer.

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

Mr. Trudeau, knew, however, that there was a conflict of interest. That's why, on May 8, he didn't want to make the decision. He wasn't comfortable. He knew. You knew. He had already been found guilty of violating the ethics rules twice. In spite of that, you went ahead, knowing that WE had hired and paid the Prime Minister's mother and brother, not to mention his wife. Mr. Morneau and his wife received gifts. Others may have as well. The last time, Mr. Trudeau said that he would never again be caught red-handed.

What mechanisms did you introduce then, to land yourselves in the same hot water today? It doesn't seem as though anyone learned anything from the previous scandals.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Ms. Telford.

[Katie Telford]

There's a lot in there. I'll start with what we knew both at that time and when we were making the decision.

What I knew at that time, which the Prime Minister has spoken to, is that the Prime Minister had gone on stage for some WE Day events. He was never paid for speaking at those events. They were youth-empowerment events that he'd gone to as someone passionate about empowering youth, but also as the youth critic and later as the youth minister, in the first mandate.

I also knew, as I said in my opening remarks, that we sought advice, from the Ethics Commissioner, related to Sophie Grégoire Trudeau's role with the WE Charity organization, and we received clearance that she could both take that role on and have her expenses covered by the organization.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We will go back to Mr. Fortin.

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

Ms. Telford, in your capacity as the Prime Minister's adviser and chief of staff, did you ever say to him, Mr. Trudeau, that he should not be involved in this decision?

[Katie Telford]

As I said already, what we discussed and what we knew at the time was that this was a binary choice, as one of the other members said earlier. It was a choice about whether to proceed with the program to support students this summer in this way of connecting them to their communities or not, and there was no conflict discussed at that time.

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

What was your recommendation to Mr. Trudeau? Did you recommend that he proceed despite the conflict of interest or appearance of a conflict of interest, shall we say?