Canadian PM Justin Trudeau testified via teleconference at a House of Commons finance committee on Thursday and said that the WE charity, which was picked by the government to manage a multi-million-dollar summer youth volunteer program, received no preferential treatment, despite his family’s ties with the organization. He said that he was following the advice of the public service, which he had no influence over, but apologized for failing to recuse himself from the cabinet discussions on the matter.
“I was not in a position of conflict of interest. I apologized because of the perception [over] ties with my family. I should have recused myself,” Trudeau said in French. He added that in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, his government was moving fast to get programs out the door to help Canadians, and the civil service recommended WE Charity as the only organization able to deliver the C$500 million ($372m) programme quickly. “WE Charity received no preferential treatment, not from me, not from anyone else,” Trudeau said in an opening statement: “The public service recommended WE Charity. I did absolutely nothing to influence that recommendation.”
The charity has ties to not just the PM’s family, but also to his finance minister, Bill Morneau. The New York Times reported earlier this month that Mr. Trudeau’s mother and brother earned around $200,000 over the last four years for speaking engagements with the charity. Meanwhile, Finance Minister Morneau’s daughter works there, and his family has traveled overseas with the charity twice in recent years.
Trudeau added that the ties to his family actually slowed down the process for approving the charity, as he put the decision on hold for two weeks and pushed the public service to “make sure that everything was done exactly right” because he “knew there would be questions asked”. The charity backed out shortly after the program was announced. When asked whether he thought WE Charity was capable of running a program as large as the Canada Student Service Grant program, Trudeau said: “We will never know because they pulled out of being able to deliver the program, partially because I hadn’t recused myself and created complications here. And that’s something that I deeply regret”.
This is Trudeau’s third ethics probe in the last four years. The first was when he accepted a ride on the Aga Khan’s personal helicopter and stayed on his private island over the holidays in 2016. Then in 2019, the Trudeau administration was found to have used its power to spare SNC Lavalin, one of Canada’s largest engineering companies, from prosecution for bribing Libyan officials in return for lucrative government contracts between 2001 and 2011. The current scandal has hurt Trudeau, with polls showing his Liberal Party slipping to just a four-point lead over the opposition Conservatives.
Trudeau Says WE Charity Received No Preferential Treatment Despite Family Ties
This is Trudeau's third ethics probe in 4 years.
July 31, 2020
Canadian PM Justin Trudeau appears as a witness via videoconference during a House of Commons finance committee on Thursday. SOURCE: CBC NEWS