"[7], Questions were raised as to whether WE Charity had enjoyed a privileged level of communication with high ranking government employees as a result of its association with prominent individuals. Presently, Craig has his attention focused on growing Free the Children further and he has so far gathered millions of dollars to work towards his goal. Craig Kielburger, the co-founder of the WE organization, got married in June 2016.

[64] Included were personal correspondence and inter-governmental memos written by the individuals responsible for the no-bid selection process. Bloc MP Marie-Helene Gaudreau proposed the new motion Monday saying the committee should examine the measures in place to avert conflicts of interest. Among these, were plans for a program that would seek to compensate students for volunteer work; awarding up to a $5000 bursary for volunteer work.

[50] Additionally, former Liberal Party National Director Jamie Carroll, who had previously been indicted through the lobbying act,[51] described it as a "sweetheart deal" as WE Charity was allowed to file its lobbying activities for the two previous years retroactively.

Popular singer Nelly Furtado performed at their wedding. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

Apart from his humanitarian efforts and social activism, Craig works as a columnist and writes under the column ‘Global Voices’ for some esteemed publications such as Huffington Post, Waterloo Region Record, Victoria Times Colonist and Vancouver Sun among many others.

The structure of the program, and the selection of WE Charity as its administrator, immediately triggered condemnation amongst the Official Opposition,[24] as well as numerous other groups, such as the Public Service Alliance of Canada,[8] Democracy Watch,[25] and Volunteer Canada[26] who argued that WE Charity: It was repeatedly claimed by government figures such as Bardish Chagger and Justin Trudeau, as well as senior bureaucrats, that the government itself was unable to deliver the program. We apologize, but this video has failed to load. [16][31], On April 22, 2020, the Government of Canada announced a series of measures and future measures to be undertaken to address the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on the student population of Canada. [86] Opposition parties have called for a variety of actions including the release of documents related to the charity and for high-ranking Liberals to appear before Parliamentary committees; the Conservatives asked for an investigation by the RCMP.

[29] On June 29, 2020, Justin Trudeau said that "as the Public Service dug into it, they came back with only one organization that was capable of networking, and organizing, and delivering this program on the scale that we needed it, and that was the WE program.

In the meantime, Free the Children kept growing at a rapid pace and Craig kept travelling to developing countries and meeting their leaders in order to get them onboard for financial support for the purpose of eradicating child labour. Seeing his growing interest in social activism, his parents allowed him to accompany a young Canadian social worker Alam Rahman to his Asian trip.

The opposition day motion was defeated with the support of the Liberals, NDP, Green Party, and Independents. Haddon Strategy directed and field produced a unique episode of MTV Cribs. Had created hundreds of volunteer positions with WE Charity itself as part of the program, doing work generally conducted by paid employees, representing a conflict of interests. Parliamentary committees nevertheless continued to press the government on the matter. [77], On April 21, 2020 the Finance Department received a proposal from the WE Charity in which it outlined a volunteer program. [59] This would haunt Morneau throughout the scandal,[36] as the forgetting of the payment was seen as incongruent to his role as Finance Minister, and the ability to write a cheque for that amount, when many Canadians were applying for COVID-19 benefits in the form of a $2000 monthly emergency payment, was seen as out of touch.

[112][113][114], On August 18, 2020, Prime Minister Trudeau suspended the functioning of the committees by asking the Governor General of Canada Julie Payette to prorogue Parliament until September 23 to present a new Speech from the Throne with an updated vision and priorities in light of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. [77] Also on this day, the Finance Department decided to select a third-party to administer the contract, however it specified that no specific group had been chosen to run it. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld. On July 30, 2020, Trudeau and his chief of staff, Katie Telford, testified before the finance committee.

Conservatives promised Canadians that we would get answers on the WE scandal.