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.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
As far as program delivery on the national scale goes, I know one of my colleagues highlighted some of the areas that were a big challenge for them. How would you rank them?
Liberal
Managing Director, Charity Intelligence Canada
Greg, to be low impact, was it that the domestic programs were average?
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
“Domestic program”, in my simple language, means their ability to deliver something at the ground level. Is that what you're—
Director of Research, Charity Intelligence Canada
That is as opposed to operations in developing countries. We found its operations within Canada were fair and its operations internationally were—
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
I only have about 20 seconds, and I want to ask a couple of closing questions.
Did the Government of Canada reach out at all to CI or The Charity Report to get feedback on any organization, including WE Charity or the WE structure?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
We are completely out of time, Mr. Jowhari.
We will now go to Madame Vignola.
You have the floor for six minutes.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I would like to point out that I hear a great deal of static on the microphone of the interpreter who just started.
My first questions are for you, Ms. Bahen and Mr. Thomson.
I have here the analysis you did of WE Charity. This document is extremely detailed. How long did it take you to compile the details and release them?
Managing Director, Charity Intelligence Canada
This has come up a lot in questions regarding this. Some people say, “How can you analyze a charity in two days”, because that's what this one took?
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
I am sorry to interrupt, Ms. Bahen, but the sound of the interpretation is extremely bad and there is so much static that I cannot even hear the interpreter's voice.
Can something be done?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
I will suspend for just a second, Madame Vignola, and I won't charge you any time. We will see if we can get our interpreters or our technicians to clarify this. Give us a moment, please.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
The sound is perfect now with the interpreter speaking at the moment. I do not know if it is a technical issue with the previous interpreter's microphone, but right now the sound is perfect.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Madame Vignola, can you re-ask your last question? We will see if the audio has corrected itself.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Once again, Ms. Bahen and Mr. Thomson, you did a report on WE Charity. How long did it take you to prepare it, compile the information and release it?
Managing Director, Charity Intelligence Canada
I would like to address this, because it has come up a number of times. How much time do we spend on charities? We have models, and they are now automated, so they will upload to the website. It took two days to do WE Charity from the moment we received the audited financial statements to when the report was published.
Some people ask, “How can you do a charity in two days.” When you do two days in 2020, and two days in 2019, 2018, and 2017, there is an accumulation of knowledge over that period of time. In addition to that, we have management interviews, we have management discussions, and we have ongoing communication with charities.
It took me two days to do this report in July 2020, but that is after a whole accumulation of years looking at WE Charity.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Okay. Thank you.
Your report contains several red flags. I was wondering if they were obvious after a basic, superficial analysis or if you had to dig deeper.
Managing Director, Charity Intelligence Canada
They were obvious. They were in black and white in the audited financial statements.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Would the red flags have been enough to make the government realize that WE Charity may not have been the best entity to administer the program?