The Conservative Party believes Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is engaging in a cover-up of the WE Charity scandal that has plagued his government for weeks, Member of Parliament Pierre Poilievre told reporters on Wednesday
TORONTO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th August, 2020) The Conservative Party believes Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is engaging in a cover-up of the WE Charity scandal that has plagued his government for weeks, Member of Parliament Pierre Poilievre told reporters on Wednesday.
A day earlier, Trudeau asked Governor General Julie Payette to prorogue parliament until September 23, thereby shutting down all parliamentary committees' business, including those who were investigating possible wrongdoing by the government in awarding a $670-million sole-source contract to WE Charity to administer a government-sponsored student volunteer program.
"This is a cover-up," Poilievre said. "The prime minister personally intervened to get a half-a-billion Dollar grant to a group that has paid his family a half-million Dollars. He is covering it up by blacking it out and shutting down our investigation."
Poilievre pointed to pages of redacted correspondence between government officials and WE Charity as one sign of a potential cover-up.
Poilievre also said government-WE Charity correspondence began weeks before May 8, a date Trudeau referenced as the starting point for the charity's consideration to deliver the program at a Standing Committee on Finance testimony.
On Monday, Trudeau said he intends to use the government shutdown to craft a long-term novel coronavirus economic recovery plan with newly minted Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland and deliver the vision via a throne speech.
An investigation by independent media outlet Canadaland revealed that Trudeau's mother and brother, Alexandre Trudeau, were paid a combined sum of $258,000 for speaking engagements at WE Charity events. Trudeau's wife Sophie has also participated in a number of WE Charity events around the world and was paid $1,036 for one event in 2012, according to the organization.
The charity's co-founders, Marc and Craig Kielburger, also revealed to a parliamentary committee that members of Trudeau's family incurred nearly $160,000 in expenses at WE Charity speaking engagements.
Apart from parliamentary probes Trudeau remains the subject of a conflict of interest probe by the Canada's Ethics Commissioner into his relationship with the WE Charity. The ethics probe is the third for the prime minister during his five years in office.
