Justin Trudeau's ethical conduct will be put under an opposition microscope Wednesday during a rare summer sitting of the House of Commons -- but the prime minister won't be there.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appears as a witness via videoconference during a House of Commons finance committee in the Wellington Building on Thursday, July 30, 2020. The committee is looking into Government Spending, WE Charity and the Canada Student Service Grant.
Trudeau's office points out that the prime minister has already testified at length about the controversy before the Commons finance committee, as have Morneau, other ministers and senior bureaucrats. Today's sitting is to last almost four hours, with most MPs participating virtually along with a handful physically present in the chamber. The session includes 95 minutes for opposition MPs to grill the government in a sort of extended question period, and more than two hours for a "take-note" debate on the government's response to the pandemic.
They may try to call the prime minister as a witness before the multiple committees now probing the controversy.The government operations committee is also to launch an inquiry into the affair once the finance committee wraps up its study. And the official languages committee is to meet today to consider a Conservative request that it too launch a study into why an anglophone charity was chosen to deliver the student grant program.
Trudeau and his ministers, backed up by bureaucrats, have insisted that it was public servants who recommended WE Charity as the only organization capable of managing the student grant program, which has since been abandoned due to the controversy. Trudeau has been a featured speaker at six WE Day events and his wife hosts a podcast for the group, for which they have not been paid. However, the charity has covered hundreds of thousands in expenses for Sophie Gregoire Trudeau as well as fees and expenses paid to Trudeau's mother and brother for speaking at numerous WE events over the years.
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