See, It's Alright When SOME People Do It

 As the Liberals have demonstrated time and time and time and time and time again:

Senior government officials running the federal government's advertising and sponsorship contracts in Quebec, as well as five Crown corporations – the RCMP, Via Rail, Canada Post, the Business Development Bank of Canada and the Old Port of Montreal – wasted money and showed disregard for rules, mishandling millions of dollars since 1995.

More than $100 million was paid to various communications agencies in the form of fees and commissions, Fraser found. In most cases the agencies did little more than hand over the cheques.

The sponsorship program was designed to generate commissions for private companies, while hiding the source of the funding, rather than providing any benefit for Canadians, Fraser said.

**

The Aga Khan’s relationship with Trudeau came to light after it was reported that Trudeau, members of his family and friends, including Liberal MP Seamus O’Regan, now the minister of veterans affairs, vacationed with the Aga Khan on a private island he owns in the Bahamas.

In response to Dawson’s findings, Trudeau repeatedly said that the Aga Khan was a family “friend” and said he would clear all family vacations with the commissioner’s office in the future.

“I’ve always considered the Aga Khan a close family friend, which is why I didn’t clear this family trip in the first place. But given the commissioner’s report, I will be taking all precautions in the future,” said Trudeau.

Dawson ruled that Trudeau and the Aga Khan’s relationship did not constitute “friends” in a way that may have exempted their interactions from one section of the Conflict of Interest Act. The Aga Khan had been friends with Pierre Trudeau, and Trudeau vacationed with the Aga Khan’s family as a child. 

The fact that the Aga Khan had been an honorary pallbearer at Pierre Trudeau’s funeral indicates how close they were – but Dawson concluded there had been no private interaction between Justin Trudeau and the Aga Khan until he became leader of the Liberal Party in 2013.

**

After weeks of discussion about the Kokanee grope, where Trudeau groped a female reporter and then apologized for being “so forward,” the PM kinda skated past the issue last July.

“I am confident that I did not act inappropriately,” Trudeau said at the time.

“I’ll be blunt about it — often a man experiences an interaction as being benign or not inappropriate, and a woman, particularly in a professional context, can experience it differently.”

Then he called the whole affair a “learning experience” for everyone in society.

Well, not everyone in society was accused of groping a reporter covering him, but Trudeau was.

**

According to the ethics report, that presentation also outlined the company’s “Plan B,” in the event of a prosecution. SNC-Lavalin would be broken up and two new companies would be created out of the parts. Three “possibly convicted” entities would form the first group, based in Canada and heading toward an “eventual wind-up.”

“The other group would be made up of parts of the SNC-Lavalin Group that had no role in the wrongful behaviour and would be reconstituted and headquartered in another jurisdiction,” the report reads.

In November, SNC-Lavalin ramped up its communications with government officials, with the company warning the prime minister’s office it “was close to escalating measures” to prepare for the “Plan B.” ...

SNC-Lavalin also floated the idea of contracting McLachlin to preside over a “settlement conference” between the company and the prosecution services. Trudeau testified that he was never informed about this proposal.

The idea of McLachlin giving Wilson-Raybould expert advice gained steam in the government over the next month, with Butts urging the attorney general to speak to “someone like” McLachlin at the beginning of December.

**

Embroiled in a scandal over his past wearing of blackface and brownface, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau said Thursday he had a message for racialized Canadians specifically. ...
 
His comments come after Global News obtained video showing the Liberal leader in blackface, the third instance of racist dress to come to light in 12 hours.

And now something new for Justin to weasel out of, a long con of big names, bigger amounts, paper trails, nepotism and rats leaving a sinking ship:

Margaret appeared at 28 events between 2016 and 2020. She most recently appeared at a WE Day event in London, England alongside the PM’s wife Sophie Gregoire Trudeau on March 4, 2020. That was the event where Sophie is said to have contracted COVID-19.

Alexandre, meanwhile, saw his speaking engagements limited to eight events during the 2017-18 academic year.

According to WE the pair pocketed $250,000 and $32,000 respectively after commission fees were paid to their agency, Speakers Spotlight.

Who paid Speaker’s Spotlight? The WE affiliated private company ME to WE. ...

For those who don’t know the difference between WE and ME to WE, WE is the charity that brings in all the money, ME to WE is the private “social enterprise” run by Craig and Marc Kielburger that sells you the chocolate, coffee, bracelets and other trinkets they buy up from the developing world.

They also will book you a “voluntourism” trip to visit one of the countries the WE Charity does good work in.

The truth is, these organizations are very closely connected and while the two are legally separate entities, it’s well beyond time we all stopped pretending they are truly separate.

The issue before us now is the conflict of interest the Prime Minister faces for awarding this lucrative contract to his friends and donors.

**

The We Charity scandal continues to snowball after it was revealed today that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Chief of Staff Katie Telford co-founded a group that worked "in support" of Free the Children, which is a branch of the WE Charity. 

As well as this, Trudeau's Minister of Natural Resources Seamus O'Regan served as the Honorary Chair of this organization, which was named Artbound. 

**

Did you know the Morneau clan took a trip to Ecuador with WE in December 2017? That’s right, Morneau, his wife Nancy McCain and their children were hosted by WE near Tena in Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest. This was after Ms. McCain and the couple’s daughter Clare Morneau were part of a trip to Kenya earlier that same year.

“In both cases the Morneau family covered all associated costs and expenses,” said Morneau’s spokesman Pierre-Olivier Herbert.

I’m glad the Morneau family paid for their own trip but the point is that Bill Morneau’s whole family is intimately tied to the WE Charity and he didn’t recuse himself from voting to give them a nearly $1 billion sole-sourced contract. Neither did Trudeau, nor it seems anyone else involved.

**

Morneau's other daughter Clare also has been involved with the WE Charity, particularly following the publication of her book Kakuma Girls, which shares the stories of African schoolgirls in a refugee camp in Kenya.

During her secondary school studies at Havergal College, Clare Morneau started a pen pal program between her school and an all-girls school that her father's company, Morneau Shepell, supported inside the camp.

**

Drop Parliament, and you drop all restraint, all questioning, all prudence — and you leave uninhibited the instincts of a prime minister who equates what he thinks to progress, what he feels to policy, and all is therefore lawful, praiseworthy, not to be scrutinized and wonderful.

Hence the Kielburger/Trudeau family soap opera. You pass a billion-dollar program to some buddies of yours, that you not only have worked with — you have been the highlight of their WE Day school rallies, the star on the program numerous times. You pass a billion-dollar program to some of your buddies your wife has had a partnership with, and your mother has spoken 28 times at their festivals, and your brother eight times. You are almost part of the brand.

(Sidebar: this brand. Ugh.)

**

The Conservative Party is calling for Parliament to be “immediately” recalled and for all documents related to a now-cancelled federal contact with WE Charity be made public, following news that two of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s relatives have collectively received hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees from the WE organization.

**

Amid the ongoing scandal, the Bloc Quebecois is demanding that Trudeau step down and let deputy PM Chrystia Freeland take over ...

(Sidebar: God, help us all! But this would allow Justin to use Chrystia as a human shield. Because it's 2020.)


**

WE.org are embedded in the K-12 system, I had no idea how or what WE-DAY was until last year when it came up talking to one of my kids.

From the financials on the WE website for 2019 they collected $2.3M from governments and a staggering $15.5M from youth. 10% of revenue was spent on admin ($6.5M).
  https://www.we.org/en-CA/about-we/we-charity/governance/financial-reports

That nice round 10% spent on admin seems high to me. They are proud of their 10% (from their FAQ’s). By comparison the Canadian Red Cross runs at 3% and they provide sweeping services across the country. Other excellent charaties are even more efficiently administered.
Here is MacLeans list of the top 100 charaties in Canada. I can’t see WE on the list.

It seems the WE.org expenditures are education and WE projects. They don’t carry reserve cash, they invest in real estate and then mortgage when necessary.

I honestly hope that with such high annual revenue ($57.9M) that they help large numbers of people (besides the deeply unfortunate Trudeaus and their cronies of course). What would they have done with $900M, or even the $90M in administrative costs (at 10%)?  

These figures:

(source: reporting period Aug. 31, 2019)

**

The federal website advertising volunteer positions for students hoping to earn money for their educations through a $900-million government aid program contains hundreds of positions that do not actually exist.

**

"I have not come across many people who've had great things to say about their experience with WE, so as a youth service provider, I decided not to get too close to that initiative," he said.

**

WE Charity hired 465 people to help administer the federal government’s student volunteer grant program. And then a political scandal hit.

The charity organization laid off 450 contract workers across the country last week and told them not to speak about their work with WE. The charity told the Star that the 15 other new hires were given full-time positions within the organization.

The workers were hired as contractors — some fixed-term, others “independent” — to deliver the Canada Student Service Grant, the Liberal government’s $900-million program to pay students for volunteering during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau initially said WE was selected to run the program because it was the “best and only” organization capable of doing it.

 
In any other country, this sort of scandal would end a government and finish political careers.

But this is Canada. No one ever loses their jobs.

Yes, Sir John A Macdonald was defeated after the Pacific Scandal in 1873 but that was back then.

Trudeaus simply don't lose their jobs or have their brimming gravy trains derailed.

And the Canadian public would have it no other way.

Thus, Canadians have a government that reflect them: leeching and morally corrupt.

Let's see who holds whose beer when Canada finally becomes Venezuela.




(Merci beaucoup)