So a few weeks ago, the federal Liberal government announced that it was using the charity WE to distribute money late high school, college & university students and essentially paying them for volunteer work.  The idea was to get the kids money because of the current COVID19 job market and I thought it was really odd, after all the feds to their credit have put out a pretty successful CERB program, why would they need to get a charity to do this for students?  Not to mention WE tends to focus on younger kids than young adults…

The PM & the WE charity repeatedly denied that any money changed hands except WE paid the PM’s mother Margaret received $250,000 & his brother Alexandre $32,000 to speak at the WE charity events.

In a response to an inquiry from CBC News, WE Charity has provided details of the speaking fees paid to both individuals for their participation at events between 2016 and 2020.

Both Margaret and Alexandre are registered with the Speakers’ Spotlight Bureau, which arranges appearances for clients in exchange for negotiated fees.

Margaret spoke at approximately 28 events and received honoraria amounting to $250,000. Alexandre spoke at eight events and received approximately $32,000.

Source: CBC

If you look at the dates, that coincides with Justin being prime minister and has the appearance of old school corruption.  Like when something needs to be built so they use the PM’s cousin’s firm to build it.

But it doesn’t stop there, the PM’s wife was also paid (admittedly a paltry $1,400 in 2012, before he was PM but when he was a politician) and our finance minister’s daughters both work at WE too!  One as a paid consultant while the other is said to be purely volunteer.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau did not recuse himself from the Liberal cabinet’s consideration of a $19.5 million contract for WE Charity, despite the involvement of two of his immediate family members in the charity — one of them as a paid contract employee.

Source: CBC

Frankly the sums of money are small and had the PM & finance minister came clean to said that their family had paid or work for WE but it’s the best charity to use regardless I think people would understand except they hid it and denied any wrongdoing altogether.  As usual it’s the cover up that makes things a lot worse.

Granted I never liked the WE charity and think the Keilburgers are frauds, but this really stinks and I’m glad it’s dragging on the federal Liberal party.  If the PM is found guilty again, it’ll be his 3rd ethics violation as prime minister and I can’t wait to see “former” in front of that title.