Thank you, Chair.
I will pick up where I left off.
Mr. Thomson, I had put to you a question about assessment criteria and how Charity Intelligence comes up with those criteria. I accept your answer, but the challenges on my end are issues around subjectivity. I pointed to a study done by MoneySense, a well-known Canadian website that comments on financial matters. They did put out a list of the top 100 charities, in their view, for 2019, based on their own assessment criteria. WE is on that list and gets an overall ranking of A-.
For fundraising efficiency, they had a grade of A+; for charity efficiency, they had a grade of A+; on social results and transparency, they had a grade of B+. All of that combined for an overall rating of A-. My point is not to delve into whether Charity Intelligence or MoneySense got it right.
There are many other lists out there based on various criteria. That's the point. All of this is very subjective. It's hard for any outside observer—certainly as a member of Parliament, but I would think within government too—to look at these criteria in a very objective way and come up with a determination about where a charity ranks in terms of quality.
I know that in your own assessments, as an organization, certainly as far as demonstrated impact goes, the WE organization received a grade of “fair”. When it comes to cents to causes, in other words measuring overhead costs compared to programming, I see that WE did very well.
My job is not to defend WE here—they'll do that themselves—but I do have concerns about subjectivity. For example, on demonstrated impact, I wanted to ask more about that.
I know you have a definition on your website, but how do you measure that as well? You have a limited staff. By your own admission at the outset of the meeting, I think you said you have three or four staff. It's a small organization. You're obviously very passionate about your work. When it comes to vetting charity after charity—there are so many that you do on an annual basis—how are you able to understand in this case the demonstrated impact that WE has? It's a bit perplexing to me.