Third ethics strike for Trudeau

[Anonymous]

With Trudeau suspending parliament, the Tories leaderless, our corrupt teflon pm will not be held accountable AGAIN.



By Lorne Gunter of Sun News Media





Justin Trudeau's mishandling of the WE Charity scandal will almost surely turn out to be his third official violation of federal ethics rules. However, if I were betting today, I would say this violation will have no more impact on Liberal voters than the first two.



Just the revelations of Wednesday and Thursday this week were probably enough to put the PM over the line vis-à-vis federal ethics laws.



On Wednesday, Trudeau admitted when the decision came to cabinet on whether to award WE administrative control of the nearly $1-billion Canada Student Service Grant ( CSSG), he did not recuse himself from the debate.



Even though Trudeau and his family have had a long, active history with the WE Charity and its founders Craig and Marc Kielburger, Trudeau now confesses he also voted to award the WE Charity a nearly $20-million contract to administer the CSSG.



Then on Thursday, Canadians learned the WE Charity (through its for-profit arm ME to WE Social Enterprises) has paid more than $280,000 over the past four years to Trudeau's mother Margaret and his brother Sacha in legitimate speaking fees.



Put those two together — payments from the charity to relatives, plus Trudeau's direct participation in decisions that would benefit the charity — and there would seem to be a classic conflict-of-interest.



Of course, even before those two revelations, the whole matter smelled as fishy as a sunny dock strewn with decomposing cod. Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, the prime minister's wife, is an official



"ambassador of WE well-being." She hosts the charity's online podcast and is listed as a "mentor, booster and champion" of the WE Charity.



She is also a frequent speaker at WE Day rallies — a sort "progressive" tent revival and boy-band frenzy for junior high students, all rolled into one.



The charity insists Gregoire Trudeau has not been paid for these appearances, only that WE has picked up her travel costs.



But Gregoire Trudeau and her children were recently in London, England, at a WE event just before the pandemic lockdowns. If WE paid for the children's expenses (and not just hers), that might well qualify as a personal enrichment under the ethics rules.



There is also the inconvenient fact that Trudeau himself was a frequent keynote speaker at WE rallies between 2012 and 2017 — two years after he became prime minister.



Indeed, Trudeau's first public speech after being sworn in as prime minister in November 2015 was at a WE Day rally in Ottawa. That's how close the Trudeaus, the Kielburgers and WE are.



On the credibility front, Trudeau of course initially insisted when the WE scandal broke that he had nothing to do with recommending WE for the sole-source contract nor approving the contract between his government and the charity.



He insisted the professional civil service alone picked WE and advised him they were the "only" charity in the country capable on short notice of dispensing nearly $1 billion to students for volunteer work done during this summer. (Ever heard of the YMCA, Boys and Girls Clubs, the United Way?)



Never mind, either, the little discrepancy between Trudeau's talking point about this being all the civil service's doing and the contrary claim by WE co-founder Marc Kielburger during a June video briefing that the Prime Minister's Office had called the charity directly and asked whether WE would be willing to help.



This should be three strikes and you're out for Trudeau.



He violated ethics laws in the Aga Khan private island vacation scandal and in the SNC-Lavalin affair.



But to have remorse, you first have shame. And Liberals, when in power, never believe they have anything to be ashamed of.

[Anonymous]

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's mother and brother were paid more than $350,000 to appear at WE Day events run by the same charity that his government attempted to give a sole-sourced $912-million contract to just weeks ago.



Remarkably, Trudeau continues to see no conflict of interest in this contract or in his involvement in awarding it.

[Anonymous]

WE are family



Justin Trudeau



His political rise mirrors that of WE Day.



He was a speaker at their first event in 2007 and has appeared many times since.



The young people he excited in 2007, 2008 and



2012 are no doubt voters for him now.



Even if Trudeau wasn't paid, he was given a platform afforded to very few elected Canadian leaders, a chance to speak to a large crowd of motivated youth and, more importantly, future voters.



Sophie Gregoire Trudeau



She hosted a WE Day event in Montreal back in 2012.



The former TV host would have been well known to the parents of the kids in the audience, less so to the students themselves. She got to share the bill with her husband, then running to be Liberal leader. In 2018, Sophie announced at a WE Day event in Vancouver that she was now a WE ambassador.



She would later host a podcast for the organization. WE says she was paid $1,400 for the 2012 event but not for any others she has attended.



Margaret Trudeau



The PM's mother has become a vocal advocate for mental health after revealing her own struggles years ago.



What none of us knew was that she was being paid quite well.



Her speaking fees averaged almost $12,000 for her 28 WE Day events. After commission she received $250,000 for herself. WE says their sister company ME to WE paid those fees though in some cases they said mistakes were made.



About $64,000 was paid by WE Charity, money that ME to WE later reimbursed.



Alexandre Trudeau



The PM's younger brother has been a foreign affairs adviser to Justin and worked on documentaries with the government of Iran.



His WE Day appearances totalled just eight days on stage for an average of $5,000 per appearance in 2017-18.

[Gaon]

This would not have happened in Israel. Canada's prime minister would have been in jail after his first ethics breach.

[Anonymous]

Bill Morneau has family ties to the WE charity and yet took part in the awarding a contract. Trudeau's government is corrupt to the bone.

[Anonymous]

This would not have happened in Israel. Canada's prime minister would have been in jail after his first ethics breach.

It's a Justine thing. The former pm, was not privileged like the current one is.

[Anonymous]

White libtard privilege.

[cc]

I'm taking a "Woke" course



Maybe I'll learn to treat Chinese as almost equals



or, failing that .. how to fake it  ac_smile

[Anonymous]

I'm taking a "Woke" course



Maybe I'll learn to treat Chinese as almost equals



or, failing that .. how to fake it  ac_smile

You would burst out laughing if you tried pretending old Shen Li is your equal.

[Anonymous]

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. I'm not sure what to say relative to our prime minister being caught three times now in violation of ethics. Fool me three times, shame on all the opposition parties who could remove him from office.

[Anonymous]

Trudeau can get away with anything.

[Thiel]

Coincidence? Not bloody likely.



'My mistake': Calls for Bill Morneau's resignation over $41,000 worth of WE Charity travel expenses

Morneau revelation is yet another potential ethics violation in the scandal over a contract for the student volunteer program



OTTAWA – Finance Minister Bill Morneau repaid more than $41,000 in travel expenses to WE Charity Wednesday, just hours before testifying at the finance committee about the $912 million contract the government gave them.



"It's my mistake," Morneau admitted, saying it was only in the last few days that he realized he had not reimbursed WE for the money.

https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/a-mistake-morneau-under-fire-over-41000-of-we-charity-expenses">https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/ ... y-expenses">https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/a-mistake-morneau-under-fire-over-41000-of-we-charity-expenses

[Anonymous]

Coincidence? Not bloody likely.



'My mistake': Calls for Bill Morneau's resignation over $41,000 worth of WE Charity travel expenses

Morneau revelation is yet another potential ethics violation in the scandal over a contract for the student volunteer program



OTTAWA – Finance Minister Bill Morneau repaid more than $41,000 in travel expenses to WE Charity Wednesday, just hours before testifying at the finance committee about the $912 million contract the government gave them.



"It's my mistake," Morneau admitted, saying it was only in the last few days that he realized he had not reimbursed WE for the money.

https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/a-mistake-morneau-under-fire-over-41000-of-we-charity-expenses">https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/ ... y-expenses">https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/a-mistake-morneau-under-fire-over-41000-of-we-charity-expenses

Bill Morneau is a multi millionaire and he receives money from a charity..



WE seems like a sleazy fake charity.

[Anonymous]

The finance minister had an epiphany that he had to repay travel expenses from three years ago the day before he had to testify before a parliamentary committee.



As the WE scandal rises, Bill Morneau can feel himself sinking

The conjunction of WE and the Liberal Party is remarkable, to the point where it is becoming hard to say where one stops and the other begins

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/the-sinking-finance-minister">https://nationalpost.com/opinion/the-si ... e-minister">https://nationalpost.com/opinion/the-sinking-finance-minister

Bill Morneau looked like a drowning man after he revealed to a parliamentary committee that he had received $41,000 in paid travel and hospitality from WE Charity, the organization his government subsequently handed a $900 million contribution agreement.



He said he wasn't aware of the $41,000 in expenses paid by WE for trips to Ecuador and Kenya in 2017, until he conducted a detailed analysis of his financial records in recent days.



He may or may not be culpable of having pushed for the architecture of a volunteer student grant that only WE could administer. But he has already admitted he should have recused himself from any WE business since one daughter, Clare, is a speaker for the charity, and another, Grace, is a contract employee.



Failure to do so appears to be a contravention of section 21 of the Conflict of Interest Act.



Now he has admitted accepting paid travel and hospitality from WE, apparently in breach of sections 11 and 12 of the Act, which bars public office holders from accepting gifts that might influence decisions.



Morneau's admission was a windfall for his Conservative nemesis, Pierre Poilievre. "Canadians will find it impossible to believe that this organization showered you with $41,000 in luxury accommodation and somehow you didn't know about it. Who did you think paid for all the wine and food and luxury travel?" he said.



It turns out the rich really are different from everyone else.



For most of us, a subsidized holiday to Ecuador and Kenya would be cause for celebration that would make the Rio de Janeiro Carnival look like a wake. But we are led to believe the nation's finance minister simply forgot this largesse on the part of an organization that seems to have become an adjunct of the Liberal Party. Neither did anyone at WE – a charity that was in breach of its bank covenants – think to ask for the money back.

[Anonymous]

WE seems like a charity for the LIberal party.