An NDP MP is calling on Youth Minister Bardish Chagger to resign saying she “misled” Canadians when she testified before MPs probing the federal government’s WE Charity deal.
During a Tuesday press conference, Charlie Angus, the NDP’s ethics critic, laid out a timeline of events that he said showed WE Charity co-founders Craig and Marc Kielburger were in the “driver’s seat” leading up to the federal government announcing the Canada Student Service Grant (CSSG) in late April.
Angus said Chagger put them there when she met with Craig Kielburger on April 17, a meeting that went unmentioned during her first appearance testifying before MPs this summer. Documents released last month suggest this was around the time WE was told to start drawing up a proposal for a grant program similar to the CSSG.
“She should step down from her failure to come clean and explain why she had that meeting,” Angus told reporters on Tuesday.
“I really don’t know how Minister Chagger stays in this position having so clearly misled two committees and misled the Canadian people at this point,” said Angus.
The assertions made by Angus deal with a central issue in the WE affair, a controversy that has plagued the government for months: whether the public service came up with the idea for WE to run the CSSG program or whether that decision was politically motivated.
A spokesperson for Chagger said that the documents supported the minister’s repeated assertions that “she never spoke with WE Charity about the Canada Student Service Grant.”
“The documents that have been disclosed support that comment and further support that this was a recommendation by the professional public service for WE to administer the program.”
The CSSG agreement was eventually awarded to WE and the group was expected to administer the federal funds to students through grants for volunteering.
But the program was quickly nixed when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faced conflict of interest questions due to his family’s ties to the organization.
Parliamentary committees began hearing testimony from ministers, including Chagger, public servants, and witnesses from outside government about the deal. Two ethics investigations were launched and thousands of documents were turned over to the committees this summer.
On July 16, Chagger testified in front of one committee that she hadn’t discussed the CSSG program with anyone at WE before meeting with cabinet ministers about the agreement.
The Star later broke the story that Chagger had met with Craig Kielburger on April 17, prior to the April 22 announcement of the program. At the time, the minister said the CSSG was not discussed and that the meeting dealt with a separate proposal WE had submitted weeks prior.
Then, on August 11, Chagger testified before another committee probing the deal, and Angus asked her why she hadn’t been forthcoming about the April 17 meeting. Chagger told Angus she hadn’t discussed the CSSG during that meeting.
But it was during that April 17 meeting that the suggestion for WE to adapt the separate proposal around social entrepreneurship to include a volunteer service aspect was raised, according to an email from a government relations employee with WE.
The program would include “microgrants” for young people and the ability for WE to work with “non-profits across the country,” said the email.
Craig Kielburger wrote in an April 22 email that Chagger herself suggested WE Charity include a volunteerism component to their proposed “social entrepreneurship” pitch during the April 17 call, which took place five days before Trudeau announced the government-funded program to pay young Canadians who volunteered during the pandemic.
Chagger has previously denied she made that recommendation: “I at no time directed WE Charity to amend or adjust or add any proposal.”
But Angus said that after the April 17 meeting, WE was the only entity being considered for the deal, according to correspondence included in the documents that were turned over. Before that, other options were on the table, he said.
“After April 17, there’s only one plan,” he said. “It’s the Kielburger plan.”
“Why did she cover up? Was she doing this on her own? Was she trying to garner a relationship to the prime minister when everyone knew that the Kielburger organization was extremely close to the Trudeau family?”
Angus said Chagger’s resignation wasn’t a condition on which the New Democrats would rest their potential support for the government’s upcoming throne speech, which could be crucial for the Liberals who need Opposition support to keep their minority government in power.
The ethics commissioner is probing the agreement between the federal government and WE Charity, including former finance minister Bill Morneau and Trudeau’s family ties to the organization.
Since 2015, WE has paid around $500,000 to Trudeau’s mother and brother in speaking fees and expenses, along with covering expenses for his wife attending events. Morneau also had a daughter working for the group when the deal was struck.
Morneau resigned his cabinet position this summer as the government dealt with the scandal.
The move came after he told a committee during testimony that WE had covered $41,000 in expenses during two overseas trips his family took in 2017.
Neither Trudeau nor Morneau recused themselves from the decision making during a cabinet meeting where WE was given the green light to work on the grant program.
Trudeau prorogued Parliament this summer, ending the probes being carried out by the all-party committees.
With files from Alex Boutilier
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