Evidence of meeting #24 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was program.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Managing Director, Charity Intelligence Canada
Greg, do you mind if I take this one?
Managing Director, Charity Intelligence Canada
This is my passion. We've been championing for financial transparency since the very beginning, and we still face this battle. This summer alone, we have over 100 requests for information, with the charities directorate. We're looking at some of Canada's largest charities with $5 million to $10 million in donations, which still refuse to put their audited financial statements up on their website. We have to go through that process of filing with the CRA, and it will take eight to nine months before we get that relevant information.
WE Charity was financially transparent. It had its audited financial statements on its website. We need to push for more financial transparency, but I also believe that people who have a fiduciary responsibility in writing cheques with other people's money need to do their homework, and the audited financial statements were right there on the website.
I appreciate that the vast majority of giving is marketing and branding and who's doing the ask, but at the end of the day, we are just such believers in due diligence. I hope all donors start reading the fine print.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you very much.
We'll now go to Mr. MacKinnon for five minutes.
Liberal
Steven MacKinnon Liberal Gatineau, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have a quick question for you, Ms. Bahen. You seem a little exasperated that perhaps some of my colleagues here, or others, seem to be putting words in your mouth. I think we can all agree that financial accountability and transparency in the charitable sector is a desired outcome, and having knowledgeable donors is clearly an objective of yours and a passion, and one that we should all share.
I do sense that you're a little exasperated that people are trying to put words in your mouth. Is that true?
Managing Director, Charity Intelligence Canada
Maybe I'm more terrified about the defamation suits down the road.
I think we need to be very careful and very precise in the language we use and what we have reported and what we have not commented on.
Liberal
Steven MacKinnon Liberal Gatineau, QC
That's a very good segue to my question for Ms. Picco. The opposition, I think, is responsible for your presence here today. Why do you think the opposition, the Conservatives, asked you to testify before us today?
Editor in Chief, The Charity Report
I got an email on Monday asking me to come to the committee and testify. I was surprised. I asked, “Who? Who would do that?” I only know now that it was the opposition. Possibly the opposition, because I have been critical.... As Kate Bahen believes, too.... I have been vocal and critical, for the past decade, about how the charity sector carries out its business. The full title of my book in 2017 was Cap in Hand: How Charities are Failing the People of Canada and the World.
Although I don't put as much focus on financial measurements as Charity Intelligence does, Kate and I both believe that it is really important to gauge the impact of charities. There are a lot of charities in Canada that don't give taxpayers a very good bang for their buck. You can talk about donors, but taxpayers basically fund charities more than anybody else.
So perhaps they thought that I would automatically take a negative approach to WE.
The point of the matter is that when bureaucrats were trying to deliver and make this program in an emergency setting, this program was endorsed by Telus. They had bank executives. The Globe and Mail was their media sponsor. They had stars. The cream of the Canadian crop was identified with WE. If I were a bureaucrat looking at an organization, I would say, “Well, hell, the committee that hands out appointments to the Order of Canada thought it was okay. The executive vice-presidents of the Royal Bank think it's fine. Telus thinks it's great.”
Liberal
Steven MacKinnon Liberal Gatineau, QC
I'm reminded, Ms. Picco, in your testimony and your answer, of that old story that it takes a carpenter to build a house, but any old ass can kick one down.
Editor in Chief, The Charity Report
Well, yes. My concern, and it's real, is about the damage this is doing to other charities. What I ask, whether you're in government or in the opposition, is to stop for a second. I looked at the newspaper yesterday and saw that the Bloc was on its way to try to deal with a snap election. I thought, “Oh, man, that's all we need.”
I'm not a Liberal. I'm not an NDP. I'm not a partisan person, but I think the government was dealing with the best information it had at the time. The point is that the elite of Canada are the ones who had vetted WE. Bring in the senior vice-president of the Royal Bank of Canada and ask him, as a board member, what he thought was so great about the organization.
Liberal
Steven MacKinnon Liberal Gatineau, QC
Unfortunately, the Bloc Québécois is not helping to end the pandemic. Rather, it is quite obviously focused on an election.
I have one last question for you, Ms. Picco.
A Conservative member asked that the Canada Revenue Agency investigate certain charitable organizations, including WE Org. How do you feel about political parties or politicians calling for investigations into charitable organizations?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Ms. Picco, I know you have probably quite a lot to offer in your answer, but unfortunately we're completely out of time. We only had five minutes. I would, however, ask you and encourage you to give your complete answer in writing to our clerk, so that it can become part of the official record of this committee. It will be distributed to all members of our committee as soon as you respond.
Conservative
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses.
Ms. Picco, you talked about the elites, such as Telus and everyone supporting WE. Telus, Royal Bank, and all those people, when they found out what the situation was, dropped their sponsorship and support of WE. I don't think it's a great example to say, “Well, because these guys made a mistake, that's wonderful. The government made a mistake as well.”
I want to follow up as well on Mr. Green's comment, and the answer back, about the obligation for WE to be open about some of those financial issues. It's actually, believe it or not, the Treasury Board Secretariat. It's right in its framework. It's not as much on WE to bring forward all the faults around its financial problems. It's actually part of Treasury Board's mandate to have asked these questions.
For Ms. Bahen and Mr. Thomson, is there any further research that you've done since your last appearance that perhaps you want to bring to light?
Director of Research, Charity Intelligence Canada
In the past week, we have not done any further research on WE.
Managing Director, Charity Intelligence Canada
I would just add that the impact numbers are being updated. There has been new information disclosed about some of its impact, which came in literally two hours ago.
Director of Research, Charity Intelligence Canada
We haven't released any new information.
Conservative
Managing Director, Charity Intelligence Canada
No. It literally just hit the desk.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
I want to ask about your experience around this. Again, it's about the transparency and how things are set up within charities. One of the issues when we had the brothers appear before us was that they were talking about how the government forced them to set up a shell company, basically, to hold all the liability every step of the way. The liability they talked about that's in the contract is a standard government liability clause that goes into every single contract.
We've heard in this very committee about the problems for small and medium-sized enterprises in terms of the liability they have to take on. If you sell 10 dollars' worth of toilet paper, you have an unlimited liability clause. The brothers explained that they created a shell company to receive all this money because, supposedly, of this liability.
I used to be head of a hospital foundation for six hospitals for seniors. Whenever we received a penny from the government—and it was quite often—we didn't go out and set up separate shell companies to receive the money.
Are you familiar with this as a standard operating practice? Do the charities you deal with go out and set up a separate shell company every time they get a grant or contribution?