The Kielburgers disputed the suggestion they had close personal ties with the Trudeau family
“I don’t know the precise nature of what they were paid for, but if it was exclusively to speak on the WE Day stage, that would have surprised me,” Douglas told the committee.
The WE organization had previously said that it covered Trudeau family members’ travel costs but had not divulged these more detailed figures. Opposition MPs raised a number of questions about why members of Trudeau’s family in particular were asked to take part in paid WE events and whether other speakers had received similar remuneration.
He also noted many other prominent politicians have attended WE events, including Laureen Harper, the wife of former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, who hosted a post-WE Day reception at 24 Sussex Drive.“I’ve never seen the prime minister or Sophie Gregoire Trudeau in a social setting. Neither of us have. We’ve never had a meal with them. We’ve never socialized with them,” Craig Kielburger said.
After the COVID-19 health crisis hit in March, the WE Charity’s executive team was “scrambling” to deal with the financial impacts of the pandemic, Douglas said, and began to lay off large numbers of staff.The board of directors convened an ad hoc committee to hold daily calls with the executive team for briefings and updates, and this committee was told the executive was running daily financial reports to inform its decision-making regarding its employees.
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