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OTTAWA — A timeline of events regarding the $912-million Canada Student Service Grant program, based on public events and statements from cabinet ministers, government officials, and WE Charity:
April 5: Finance Minister Bill Morneau and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau talk over the phone about how to help students whose summer job and volunteer opportunities were vanishing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Finance Department officials are tasked with considering options the next morning.
April 7: Morneau’s office contacts the WE organization, among other groups, to get their input on potential programs.
April 9: WE Charity sends an unsolicited proposal for a youth entrepreneurship program to Morneau, Youth Minister Bardish Chagger, Small Business Minister Mary Ng and Trudeau’s office. The price tag is between $6 million and $14 million to provide digital programming and $500 grants, plus “incentive funds,” for 8,000 students.
April 16: Employment and Social Development Canada officials mention WE in the context of the student program in an email discussion with Finance Department officials.
April 18: Morneau’s officials raise the idea of partnering with a non-profit, or for-profit group to administer the program. (ESDC officials suggest the same day that WE might be an option.) Morneau said it was the first time he was involved in any talk about WE and the grant program.
April 19: A senior official at Employment and Social Development Canada, Rachel Wernick, contacts WE co-founder Craig Kielburger. She learns of the April 9 proposal.
April 20: Morneau’s office contacts WE to ask about its ability to deliver a volunteer program. An official’s record of the call notes “WE Charity will re-work their 10-week summer program proposal to fully meet the policy objective of national service and increase their current placements of 8,000 to double.”
April 21: Morneau approves going with an outside organization to run the volunteer program, but no specific group is chosen.
April 22: Trudeau announces a $9-billion package of student aid, including the outline of a volunteer program paying students up to $5,000 toward education costs, based on the number of hours they volunteer. WE sends Wernick an updated proposal to reflect the announcement.
April 26: Morneau speaks with WE co-founder Craig Kielburger, but told the finance committee neither of them talked about the Canada Student Service Grant program.
April 27: Volunteer Canada, a charity that promotes volunteering and helps organizations use volunteers well, meets Chagger and raises concerns about paying students hourly rates below minimum wage and calling it volunteering.
May 4: WE sends a third proposal to Employment and Social Development Canada, this time with more details and specific to the grant program. Finance Department official Michelle Kovacevic, who was working on the program, told the finance committee she received it May 7.
May 5: Youth Minister Bardish Chagger went to a special COVID-19 cabinet committee with the recommendation to go with WE for the program. Morneau isn’t at the meeting.
May 22: Cabinet, including Trudeau and Morneau, approved handing the reins of the program to WE.
May 23: The public service officially begins negotiating a contribution agreement with WE, which would have paid up to $43.5 million in fees to the group.
May 25 to June 3: In a series of meetings with Volunteer Canada, WE suggests the target for placements through the program had gone from 20,000 to 100,000.
June 12: WE co-founder Marc Kielburger says in a video chat with youth leaders that he heard from Trudeau’s office about getting involved in the volunteer program the day after it was announced by the prime minister. He later backtracks, saying the contact came the week of April 26 from Wernick, and not the PMO.
June 23: WE is informed the contribution agreement has been approved.
June 25: Trudeau unveils more details about student aid. A government release notes that WE will administer the student-volunteer program.
June 26: Facing questions about WE, Trudeau says the non-partisan public service made the recommendation, and the government accepted it: “As the public service dug into it, they came back with only one organization that was capable of networking and organizing and delivering this program on the scale that we needed it, and that was the WE program.”
July 3: Citing the ongoing controversy, WE and the Liberals announce a parting of ways and the federal government takes control of the program. Ethics commissioner Mario Dion tells Conservative and NDP ethics critics in separate letters he will examine Trudeau’s role in the awarding of the agreement because of the prime minister’s close ties to the group.
July 9: WE says it has paid Trudeau’s mother Margaret about $250,000 for 28 speaking appearances at WE-related events between 2016 and 2020. His brother Alexandre was been paid $32,000 for eight events, and Trudeau’s wife Sophie Gregoire Trudeau received $1,400 in 2012 for a single appearance. The organization says Trudeau himself has never been paid by the charity or its for-profit arm.
July 13: Trudeau apologizes for not recusing himself from discussions about WE over his family’s longtime involvement with the organization. Morneau also issues an apology.
July 16: Dion says he will investigate Morneau’s actions in the affair. Chagger testifies at the finance committee, saying Trudeau’s office didn’t direct her to go with WE.
July 21: Ian Shugart, clerk of the Privy Council, tells the Commons finance committee there is no evidence to suggest Trudeau spoke with WE before the organization was awarded the deal to run the student-volunteer program.
July 22: Morneau tells the finance committee he just repaid over $41,000 to WE for travel expenses the organization footed for the minister and his family. The Opposition Conservatives call for Morneau to resign.
Trudeau’s office says he and his chief of staff, Katie Telford, have agreed to testify before the committee with a date and time to be set.
The House of Commons ethics committee also calls on Trudeau to testify, and votes to seek copies of records for Trudeau and his family’s speaking appearances dating back years. Six opposition members outvote five Liberals to have that committee start its own investigation.
July 23: Conservatives and New Democrats ask Dion to launch a new probe of Morneau over his travel expenses.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 23, 2020.
The Canadian Press