WE Charity has fully repaid full $30M received through now-cancelled government deal

WE charity confirms it has returned funds to gov't The WE Charity has returned all the funds it has received from the government for the student program. Michel Boyer has the details.

OTTAWA — WE Charity has repaid the full $30 million that the WE Charity Foundation received from the federal government under its now-cancelled deal to deliver the Canada Student Service Grant (CSSG), according to one of the organization's Twitter accounts.

"As of today, WE Charity has transferred back the full balance of funds for the CSSG to the Government of Canada," according to the tweet sent from the WE Communications account on Thursday evening.

"Over the last 2 months, WE Charity repeatedly communicated to the ESDC the desire to return the remaining funds as soon as the Gov was able to accept the transfer."

The WE Charity Foundation had signed a contribution agreement with the government to deliver $543 million of up to $912 million in grants. WE Charity was slated to receive $43 million for the administration of the program, and $30 million of those funds was delivered to WE before the program was abruptly cancelled.

During her testimony before the House ethics committee on August 11, Youth Minister Bardish Chagger said the full amount had yet to be repaid — despite the fact that WE Charity had pulled out from the program on July 3.

"The money, as the organization has indicated, will be returned to the government," Chagger said at the time.

"We want to ensure that all processes are being followed. I can assure you that the public service is working with the organization to ensure that it is returned."

In the tweet announcing the full repayment, WE Charity also explained that the charity had incurred $5 million in expenses — a cost the organization will now have to swallow.

 Speaking before the House finance committee on July 28, Craig and Marc Kielburger — the WE Charity founders — said said had begun to incur eligible expenses for the program on May 5, over two months before an actual contribution agreement was signed for the program.

"Although we started working on May 5, we were aware that despite our building a network in support, if the contract were not signed, we would not be reimbursed," Craig told the committee at the time.

"We took that risk on in full knowledge ourselves."

The decision to grant WE Charity the now-cancelled contract came under fire after the charity's ties to Trudeau and former finance minister Bill Morneau's families were revealed.

Trudeau's mother, Margaret Trudeau, spoke at approximately 28 WE Charity events and was paid $250,000 in speaking honorariums between 2016 and 2020. The prime minister's brother, Alexandre Trudeau, also spoke at eight WE Charity events from 2017 to 2018 and was paid a total of approximately $32,000.

In addition, Trudeau's wife, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, received a "one-time speaking honorarium" of $1,400 for participating in a youth event in 2012, before Trudeau became leader of the Liberal Party.

Meanwhile, WE Charity paid in part for two trips that members of Morneau's family took in 2017 — one of which Morneau himself took part in.

Morneau apologized for the "error" and said it was his full intention to cover the full cost of the trips — though he only last month repaid the $41,000 the charity had initially covered related to the trips to Kenya and Ecuador. The former finance minister's daughter Clare has also spoken at WE events, and his daughter Grace is currently employed by WE Charity. Morneau has since resigned as both finance minister and as a member of Parliament, though he would not directly attribute the decision to the WE controversy.

Both men have apologized for not recusing themselves from the discussions. Trudeau has insisted that he was not in an actual position of conflict during the conversations about the grant — but rather, that he was subject to a perception of conflict.

The prime minister has also said he expressed concern about the choice of WE Charity when he first learned of it. He said he was worried about a perception of conflict, and as a result asked the public service to "put the brakes on" to ensure the organization really was the only one that could have delivered the program.

"I wanted to push back and really make sure that everyone could say without a shadow of a doubt that this was…the way to deliver the program recommended by our outstanding and professional public servants," Trudeau said in a press conference July 31.

Despite the apologies and explanations, both the Bloc Quebecois and former Conservative leader Andrew Scheer had called on Trudeau to resign.

NDP MP Charlie Angus has also said Chagger should resign over the issue, arguing that she played a bigger part in the WE deal than she has admitted.