Madam Chair, we are in the middle of a pandemic. Now more than ever, we need our government and we need it to be effective, but the Liberal government created a sponsorship program to help Trudeau family friends. We are not okay with that.
This is about scholarships, student assistance and volunteering. We agree that those are all good things.
The problem is that the program was handed over to an organization linked to the Trudeau family, an organization that, in recent years, has paid over a quarter of a million dollars to the Trudeau family for little speaking engagements.
The government claimed that it gave the program to WE Charity because it had no choice: WE Charity was the only organization that could administer the program. Day after day, as witnesses appeared before the committee, it became increasingly clear to us that that was not true. Many other organizations could have done it. The public service could have done it.
Here is the question I would like one of the ministers to answer: Why was there no call for tenders?