There is a scandal brewing in Canada involving the family of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the We Charity that the Trudeau government gave nearly a half billion dollars too.
The scandal is so bad that a committee in the House of Commons required the two brothers, Marc and Craig Kielburger, to appear to explain what happened.
In a nutshell, while the Trudeau government flooded We Charity with cash, they were paying Trudeau’s family, mother and brother, speaking fees: nearly $500,000,000 versus $400,000.
MP Pierre Poilievre asked Marc and Craig Kielburger some pointed questions at the committee meeting:
BBC provides additional details:
Mr Trudeau is facing the third ethics investigation of his five years in office over the government’s decision to task WE with administering the programme. WE Charity Canada would have received up to $43.5m to manage the programme under that agreement.
Just over C$900m ($679m, £519m) was originally earmarked for the programme, designed to connect post-secondary students to volunteer opportunities – for which they would later receive a grant – to make up for summer job prospects that had disappeared during the pandemic.
It later emerged that Mr Trudeau’s mother and brother had been paid for speaking at various WE events over the years.
Margaret Trudeau was paid C$250,000 for speaking at 28 WE events over four years, and brother Alexandre was paid C$32,000 for speaking at eight between 2017-2018.
READ: WE charity scandal – A simple guide to the new crisis for Trudeau
And as well, Trudeau’s then finance minister, Bill Morneau, was also caught up in the scandal as one of his daughter worked for the charity.
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