TORONTO -- WE Charity's Canadian operations have been brought down in the fallout of a political firestorm, but its founders say they do not regret getting involved with the Canada Student Service Grant.
WE co-founders Craig and Marc Kielburger spoke exclusively with CTV News Chief Anchor and Senior Editor Lisa LaFlamme on Wednesday, reflecting on a summer in which they found themselves in the public eye in a manner they never had before.
Here are some of the key takeaways from the interview.
WE ISN'T COMPLETELY DISAPPEARING
Although WE Charity's Canadian operations are winding down, the Kielburgers have no plans to shutter all aspects of their venture.
As part of the Wednesday announcement about the impending shutdown, the Kielburgers said all of the charity's assets will be sold in order to create an endowment fund to pay for existing and to-be-completed WE projects elsewhere in the world. Some outstanding debts will have to be paid off too, Marc Kielburger said, adding that he expects this fund to total "in the tens of millions of dollars" and survive for "generations."
"The choice was to sacrifice the charity because it would put more money toward the children," Craig Kielburger said.
WE's website will also stay online, featuring educational resources and videos from past WE Day events.
As many Canadians learned this year, though, WE Charity is not the full extent of the Kielburgers' domain. There is also Me to We, which offers services including leadership training programs, professional speakers and charitable international travel.
Although Me to We is a for-profit company, Craig Kielburger said its profits either "went to the charity or got reinvested.'
The travel portion of Me to We has been on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Marc Kielburger said that the organization is "down to just a handful of staff" – but at this point, it is not facing the same fate as WE Charity.
"At this moment, we're not able to make any decisions yet," he told LaFlamme.
THEY WISH BILL MORNEAU HAD ACTED DIFFERENTLY…
The WE affair has been one of the greatest challenges for the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, seemingly contributing to the loss of its finance minister.
Bill Morneau resigned from that position last month, four weeks after revealing to the House finance committee that he had just repaid WE $41,000 for trips his family had taken through the organization to Kenya and Ecuador, including one he was a part of himself.
This repayment was made days after the federal ethics commissioner launched an investigation into Morneau not recusing himself from the decision-making process regarding WE Charity's sole-source contract to deliver the Canada Student Grant Program. One of Morneau's daughters works for the WE organization, and another has spoken at WE events.
Craig Kielburger told LaFlamme that the $41,000 was "obviously" not the cost of the travel. Instead, he said, Morneau asked WE what would be "the maximum amount that could be incurred" for trips of that type, was told $41,000 and chose to repay that amount.
"I wish he'd recused himself on the decision on the Canada Service Grants, but I have no regrets hosting him," he said, adding that the money Morneau repaid helped fund schools and clean water projects on Ecuador.
Trudeau is also being investigated by the ethics commissioner for a possible breach of conflict-of-interest rules around the WE contract, given that his mother and brother received more than $280,000 total for speaking at 36 WE events since Trudeau became prime minister. His wife also received $1,400 for participating at a WE event in 2012.
Marc Kielburger said that he and his brother's relationship with Morneau is "largely in [the] context" of him being their local MP in Toronto. Craig Kielburger suggested they are even less close with the prime minister.
"We've never spoken to Justin Trudeau on the phone, ever. [We] don't have his email, don't know how to reach him," he said.
...BUT WOULDN'T CHANGE THEIR OWN ACTIONS
Despite all the tumult caused by the organization being selected for a sole-source government contract to run a federal grant program, the Kielburgers say they would not have handled anything differently, beyond possibly pushing the government to approach the issue differently.
Craig Kielburger said he and his brother "were very naïve" in getting involved in what he described as an "unfortunate political freight train" ultimately leading to Wednesday's closure announcement.
But both Kielburgers maintained that they do not regret getting involved in the process that would have seen their organization paid up to $43.5 million to help connect students with volunteer opportunities.
"I wish, in hindsight, that the government had a different procurement process and I wish we pushed them to have a different procurement process – but in the middle of a pandemic, we were asked to help and we said yes," Craig Kielburger said.
"It was still the right thing to do, because it would help 100,000 students do service work."
Documents filed as part of the finance committee's probe into the student grant program show that federal bureaucrats pushed for WE to be awarded the contract because they believed WE was the only organization capable of delivering the large-scale project in the short timeframe desired.
They also suggest that WE may have been on the bureaucrats' radar because of efforts made by political staffers in the officers of Morneau and Youth Minister Bardish Chagger. Opposition parties have seized on this, as well as redactions in many of the documents, to accuse the governing Liberals of hiding the full truth about the WE affair.
Marc Kielburger told LaFlamme that he is "angry at the situation" and what it did to the charity his brother started when he was 12 years old because "the politics took over" but he, too, does not have serious second thoughts about getting involved in the first place.
"If we had the opportunity to answer that phone call again, I would say yes, we would," he said.
