Front Burner - WE charity founders grilled, again

Episode Date: March 17, 2021

WE Charity co-founders Marc and Craig Kielburger faced another grilling by politicians this week, this time by the ethics committee. Today on Front Burner, CBC senior parliamentary reporter Catherine Cullen on new calls for an RCMP investigation.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. This is a political scandal for the government, not We Charity. The government should find a children's charity by letting it take the fall for their political decisions.

And the opposition allowed them. Last week, WE Charity founders Mark and Craig Kielburger faced this ultimatum. Show up to a parliamentary committee to answer questions or risk being dragged there in handcuffs. The House of Commons, should it so wish, could have law enforcement authorities take the Kielbergers into custody and compel them to testify. Well, on Monday, they showed up. What followed was an often acrimonious exchange between the brothers and members of parliament who were grilling them on their relationships with the Liberal government. And now, allegations of misleading donors within their charity. Why didn't you just register to lobby?

And we wouldn't be wasting our time with this. It is actually not possible for a volunteer to register to lobby. It is literally not possible. If you would like to change the law, I invite you to do so. Your smirking and your evading might be fun now. It's not going to be fun when we're investigating you for contempt of Parliament. Today, my colleague Catherine Cullen is here to talk about this testimony and where we're at with this months-old scandal. Hi, Catherine. Thanks so much for being here. Hey, Jamie. Happy to do it.

Always a pleasure to have you. So, Catherine, one man's story about his son loomed very large over this hearing on Monday. His name is Reid Cowan, and he testified previously. And what did he say? Yeah, it was really a moment, I think, that snapped a lot of people's attention back to what was going on with this whole question of WE Charity and the government's relationship with WE, because Reid Cowan's testimony, I mean, really, it was heartbreaking. He is an American journalist. His son, Wesley, died at the age of four in 2006 in an accident. And after that, Reed Cowan, he really threw himself into doing fundraising work with what was then known as Free the Children, now We Charity.

He says, he told the committee that he was told by senior staff at We Charity that he was the sole fundraiser of a school in Kenya, which went on to have a plaque on it bearing Wesley's name. And Reid Cowan says that he helped raise money for many, many other projects over the course of the year. He traveled to Kenya. He actually saw that plaque on the school. He would later learn that the plaque had been taken down.

Learning that we charities and Free the Children are embroiled in scandal and that assurances made to donors are now in question feels like to me returning to my son's grave to find it broken open, defiled and empty. He just spoke to his confusion and his concern, his anger at what had been going on with WEA, all the questions that he had about how this organization was going about raising money and why something could happen like what happened with the plaque bearing his son's name. Right. And he said essentially this plaque was taken down and it was replaced with another name, right?

Yeah, he's actually pointed to video from different moments that shows the plaque with his son Wesley's name and then the plaque with the name of another donor, something that was so heartbreaking for him. Now, we has questioned some of the bigger issues raised by things that Reid Cowan has said publicly. But one thing, and this really came through, I think, clearly during the testimony yesterday, Jamie,

the one thing that the Kielburgers are saying, hands down, we acknowledge there was an issue here, it shouldn't have happened, is the taking down of the plaque. Mr. Cowan is right to be upset and no words are sufficient to erase the grief that this error has compounded. They say that they've started looking at their practices in light of this,

but this is one moment where, despite all the sort of push and pull that we often hear from We Charity, they say, shouldn't have happened, we feel sick over it. Although I don't think that is nearly enough to satisfy Reid Cowan. although I don't think that is nearly enough to satisfy Reid Cowan. It's worth noting probably here that this allegation of misleading donors about where their money is going isn't a unique one to this story. There were also allegations that they did something similar with boreholes, that multiple donors raised money for the same borehole in Kenya,

which is something our colleagues at the Fifth Estate uncovered. This group from Whistler said they paid for a clean drinking water project in Kipsongal. This student's group from UBC said they made history funding an entire clean water well in Kipsongal. And this post from Unilever said they were raising $200,000, essentially the cost of a borehole in Kipsongal, Kenya. Were all donors clear on what their donations were funding? The Kielberger say that essentially it's more complicated.

There are a lot of expenses connected to the borehole. They say that donors connected to this borehole understand and recently signed a letter to that effect. But worth mentioning that this isn't the only sort of similar allegation. We mentioned in the intro that the Kielburgers almost didn't testify. And I know that it has to do with Reid Cowan's testimony. And what did it set in motion? You're right to point to this question of what does it all mean and how does it feed into this testimony?

Well, Reid Cowan, as I say, very upset after he testified at committee and very upset by We Charity's response to his testimony. So following that, he comes out and he says, listen, I have had it. It's time for the authorities to look into what is going on with We Charity. He called for the IRS to investigate. He said he wanted the Canadian authorities to look into what is going on with We Charity. He called for the IRS to investigate. He said he wanted the Canadian authorities to investigate. And that message was picked up by NDP MP Charlie Angus, who called on the RCMP and the CRA to look into what is going on. We Charity

saw that and said, well, we're not going to show up at your committee. We're perfectly happy, according to the statement put up by their lawyers. We're perfectly happy to go along with any investigation. We were happy to testify at committee. But now you've all put us in this position where you're basically trying to conduct a police or judicial investigation, even though this isn't an impartial system. We're just not interested in showing up and being a part of any of this. The problem for the Kielburgers in that particular instance is that there is the possibility, there's a precedent, it's a historical one, it's more than 100 years old, but that a witness can actually be essentially dragged before Parliament, be it the House of Commons or a parliamentary committee,

by law enforcement. Not a good look, I think it is safe to say. And so ultimately, there was this agreement, I guess, negotiated that the Kielburgers would indeed come before the ethics committee, but that they would do so with a lawyer present, which is ultimately what we saw. Right. And we saw that lawyer in the, I don't know, their Zoom frame on Monday. So look, on this idea about whether or not the RCMP, the CRA, the IRS may or may not be investigating here, I know that the Kielburgers were asked about this multiple times on Monday. And Catherine, what happened? I have to be honest, I found this super confusing. So I'm hoping that you can help explain it to me.

I don't think, in fact, I'm sure you're not the only one who was confused, Jamie. I found it a bit confusing too. Now, this was one of the questions that got asked right off the bat when they were testifying before committee. So what's going on? Have you been contacted by the RCMP? And the Kielburgers said, we haven't been contacted by the RCMP with regards to Mr. Angus's letter. So your initial takeaway is, okay, well, they haven't had contact with police.

But different MPs kept bringing it up, and they kept using the same phrasing. And so at that point, MPs start pushing a little bit further and going, well, you're saying you haven't been contacted with regards to this one thing. But I want to know, generally speaking, is the RCMP investigating you? Has the RCMP reached out? The Kilberger brothers say, we don't know if the RCMP is investigating us. We can't know what an agency is doing. But it did get a bit murky at one point

when the Kilbergers seemed to refer to their lawyer and they said they would have to ask the RCMP about disclosure, about what might be going on. Apparently, I have no problem actually answering your question. I think we already did. You didn't answer it. The integrity of the investigations, we're supposed to leave this to the RCMP

to actually give comment and disclose on such matters. They certainly tried to leave the impression that they were not being interviewed by the RCMP about this. But I'm with you. It did ultimately feel a bit confusing after three hours of back and forth. Still question marks on that, something that will continue to follow. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization.

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That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. Okay, so this ethics committee that we saw on Monday, it's supposed to have been looking into a conflict of interest, namely that the prime minister has a cozy relationship with the Kielburgers and we, that his family members, his wife, his mother, his brother,

had received payments to speak at events for them. Speak at events. Total, please. Get to it. Yes, it's the quickest math that I can here. Adding it together is roughly $216,000 in honorariums and roughly $209,000 in expenses. And if you add that together, it's a little over $400,000 that would have been all in. And that Bill Morneau, the former finance minister and his family,

racked up more than $41,000 worth of expenses on a couple of trips with WE, money that Morneau only repaid in the last few months. And the idea here is that the finance minister and the PM, as I'm sure people will remember, did not recuse themselves from the decision to give we a multi-million dollar sole source government contract. And so why, Catherine, is this ethics committee

then asking so many questions about allegations of misleading donors within the charity? I think the MPs asking those questions would tell you that they believe it's germane because it speaks to what kind of organization we is, or to some extent was, because they're winding down operations right now. And that that is relevant for a few different reasons. One, because they did receive this enormous contract from the government or a contractor to take care of an enormous program so it's germane in that sense and also there have been a lot of questions about

the vetting around we the idea being that the civil service said to the prime minister's office listen this is the only organization that can do this and there are there were other questions over the course of the testimony about you know just how detailed that vetting process was, whether it turned up all the necessary information. The Kielburgers certainly said on Monday that this was political. They basically essentially said that they felt like this was like a political hit job against them. Yeah, the one line that really stood out to me was when they talked about being cancelled by Canadian politics, like kind of a twist on this idea of cancel culture. Although Canadian politics have cancelled weed charity in Canada, in countries like Kenya, the endowment will be set up and will continue to help children for generations. They say that they feel they were failed by the federal government. They say like, listen,

we weren't the ones who told Bill Morneau and the prime minister not to recuse themselves. Like, they made those decisions and now we're the ones paying the price for it. And so on the one hand, the tone was very angry in the sense that they felt that they were being unfairly persecuted. And they talked more than once about death threats. My youngest isn't even one year old, and he's already received death threats directed to him. Two journalists and newspapers in Canada felt they could publish our home addresses in those newspapers. My three-and-a-half-year-old can't play outside anymore.

So, yeah, really trying to create a sense that they were collateral damage, unfair damage, in what is ultimately a political process. That's their argument. Right. And of course, as people will also probably remember, in September, the charity announced that Canadians' operations would close and the Kielburgers would leave the organization. So this committee hearing, it did also focus on issues of conflict of interest allegations.

And there are a few things that I do think are worth highlighting here. And I want to get your thoughts on them as well. And let's start with NDP MP Charlie Angus. So one of the things he pushed them on was why they didn't register to be allowed to lobby the government. And why was that so important to establish? And what do we learn, if anything? Well, I mean, I think this speaks to what the opposition politicians in particular are trying to do here, right? They're trying to sort of create or establish a narrative about what's

happening here. And the part of the narrative is this charity was too cozy with the government you know so as charlie angus is saying why didn't you do this why didn't you just register as lobbyists he actually said at one point don't you think you would have saved yourself a lot of grief if you would just follow the rules like other charities do charlie angus really has attracted the ire of the keel burgers we can safely say we We Charity actually put something up on its website, which it calls 101 false statements by NDP MP Charlie Angus. So we won't get into litigating all of that, but I think it's a pretty good example of a less than friendly Right. So whether they registered as lobbyists or not, what's the issue here? Like, what are they being accused of that was inappropriate?

It speaks to, in some ways, the heart of the whole matter here, right? Which is, like, how did this organization get this enormous responsibility? And the suggestion was that they were, that they sought it out, that they were lobbying the government. And Charlie Angus, I think at one point said yesterday, you know, you guys said you didn't call Canada, Canada called you. Well, when I look at the documents that I've seen publicly now, it sure does look like you guys called Canada. You tried to make this happen, which again speaks to this idea that they were receiving some sort of favorable treatment because they had pre-existing relationships with certain members of the government. day, did find himself saying basically day after day after day that this was ultimately a choice recommended to him by the civil services, even argued that he tried to push back for more vetting

when they told him that there was only one organization that could do this. Okay, I think that that may bring us to another big moment, which was sort of conservative MP Pierre Polyev's made for TV gotcha moment. And this had to do specifically with a LinkedIn message. And what happened here? Yeah, there was definitely a sense of high drama around this. You know, like the Kielbergers have suggested they feel like this whole thing was sort of a political trial. This one moment with Pierre Polyev really did have a feeling of TV courtroom drama going on. I really did have a feeling of like TV courtroom drama going on.

What was the role exactly of Mr. Chin, senior advisor to the prime minister in setting up this program? He asks the Kielberger brothers about Ben Chin, senior advisor to the prime minister. I don't think he had any role. And Polyev says, well, what was his role in setting this whole thing up? And the Kielberger seem kind of confused. They say, well, he didn't he didn't this whole thing up? And the Kielbergers seem kind of confused. They say, well, he didn't have one, none. Like, who are you asking about again? Are you sure?

Is that the answer for both of you? Yes, that's correct. Who are you referring to, sir? Can you repeat this, please? Ben Chin. There's no role. Craig, no role? Not that I'm aware of.

Pierre Polyev says, okay, I want to make sure you're both saying that. Ben Chin had nothing to do with this. Well, then. Then why did you send him a message on LinkedIn on June 27th saying, Hello, Ben. Thank you for your kindness in helping shape our latest program with the government. Warmly, Craig. To which Ben Chin responds, great to hear from you, Craig. Let's get our young working.

It's that phrase, helping shape our latest program with the government that Pierre Poiliev is really seizing on here for a couple of reasons. One, to suggest that in fact, the prime minister's office was involved in shaping this program. And as much as this has been made to seem, you know, the political argument has been, this is what the civil service recommended to us. They're saying, well, look at this, this talks about how the prime minister's office, his senior advisor is shaping this program. So I sent a hundred messages because I only had seven people, eight people on LinkedIn before that. And so that day, a hundred messages went out. My EA sent them to people to join on LinkedIn and he was one of them.

Now, Craig Kielberger says, in fact, that message was sent by his executive assistant, that it was one of 100 LinkedIn requests that he sent out that day, and that his executive assistant was just showing some gumption and finding a way to personalize all of those messages. Right. So Catherine, where does this all leave us? You know, are we any closer after Monday to understanding what actually happened here? Who reached out to whom? How this thing, this sole source government contract got rolling? You know, whether or not the Kielburgers and the WE organization actually got preferential treatment? I don't think that there was one particular thing that we learned on Monday that like blew the lid off this story, Jamie. I think you have to consider the context

this is happening in. The Kilberger brothers did already give four hours of testimony in the summer to a different parliamentary committee. As much attention might be paid to that moment of drama with Ben Chin, that piece of information was actually already part of the body of documents that's been provided to Parliament as they look into this. So I think it was an interesting moment. It had, in some ways, sort of almost a theatrical feeling about it. Emotions were certainly running high. But in terms of new information, I don't really know how far this moved things forward. Now, this committee is going to present a report on all of its findings. Another shoe that we're waiting to have drop in all of this

is the ethics commissioner. I do think that's going to be an interesting part of this story. People may have forgotten that he's actually conducting multiple investigations into what was going on here. We don't know when that report is going to come forward, but I think that that's going to be the next really big piece in terms of advancing our understanding, because it is supposed to be an impartial ruling into the conduct of the Prime Minister in particular, is of course the one we're interested in here,

and whether or not he did indeed follow the rules. Let's say the ethics commissioner does come back and finds that the prime minister and others around him didn't follow the rules, that there was a clear conflict of interest here. Do you think that this is going to move the needle with Canadians here? We're talking about an imminent election.

Well, I mean, I think there's sort of two answers to that. On the one hand, this is not the first time. It's not the second time. This is the third time that the ethics commissioner has been probing the allegations, the actions, rather, of the prime minister. You know, Aga Khan vacation? Anyone? Like, I don't think that's on the top of the average voter's mind. Justin Trudeau did return to power

after both the Aga Khan vacation finding and the SNC-Lavalin finding. You know, voters are going to have to weigh that against other factors too. I would say right now, obviously, the handling of the pandemic is probably going to be top of mind if we find ourselves in an election anytime soon, although that is like huge asterisks there, timing TBD. At the same time, though, I think there's a reason that the opposition really sticks to this issue. And they know that the storyline that they are trying to establish here, you know, too cozy with your friends, not respecting the rules, you know, even taking it to the level of suggesting a kind of corruption on the part of

the government, that those are things that stick in voters' minds. Okay. Catherine Cullen, thank you, as always. You're welcome. All right, so before we go today, a bit of news about the AstraZeneca vaccine. Canada's Chief Public Health Officer, Theresa Tam, has said that she has found no evidence that it causes adverse effects in the general population. The benefits of the vaccine continue to outweigh its risks. Tam said this following news that about a dozen European countries halted its use, following reports of blood clots in some of the people who got the vaccine. There is currently no indication that the vaccine caused the observed events. Tam's deputy says the number of people with blood clots didn't exceed what would normally be found in the general

population. Also, Canada's National Advisory Committee on Immunization has changed its recommendations on the AstraZeneca shot. They now recommend that it can be given to people over 65. That's all for today. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner. Talk to you tomorrow.