scandal

Friday September 11, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday September 11, 2020

WE Charity closing Canadian operations, Kielburgers leaving organization

WE Charity is shuttering its Canadian operations and the group’s founders, Craig and Marc Kielburger, will leave the organization entirely, in a dramatic reversal of fortune for the two brothers.

July 30, 2020

The surprise announcement came Wednesday. In a statement, the charity said it would sell its assets to establish an endowment fund for existing international humanitarian programs and to digitize its education resources in Canada.

The statement attributed the decision to the disruptions caused by the COVID-19pandemic and the continued fallout from its cancelled contract with the federal government to administer a student volunteer program. The agreement to administer the Canada Student Service Grant was first announced in June but was cancelled in July amid growing questions about the group’s connections to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s family and his former finance minister.

The controversy has “placed the charity in the middle of political battles and misinformation that a charity is ill-equipped to fight,” the statement said. “As a result, the financial math for the charity’s future is clear.”

July 24, 2020

Rather than preventing further damage, the decision to scuttle the government contract marked only the beginning. In the past two months, the charity’s founders, senior staff and former board chair have all testified before parliamentary committees. The affair has led to ethics investigations into Mr. Trudeau and his ex-colleague Bill Morneau, who resigned in August. It also brought to light questions about the organization’s governance, work environment and unregistered lobbyingof the federal government.

Since winning government in 2015, Mr. Trudeau has regularly attended WE events. On Wednesday, the Prime Minister’s Office said it had no comment on WE’s plans to close its Canadian operations.

In July, the charity announced that it would indefinitely postpone its WE Day events for students, restructure its programs, clarify the roles of its charitable and for-profit arms and conduct an internal review. Less than two months later, it’s taking much more drastic steps.

The double whammy of the pandemic and political firestorm has led to significant financial pressures and a loss of sponsors, the statement said. It also places blame for a lack of future revenue on the continued controversy in Ottawa, which has an indeterminate length. It adds that continuing to operate would consume savings that are “essential to establishing the endowment fund.” (Globe & Mail) 

 

Saturday July 11, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday July 11, 2020

PM’s mother Margaret and brother Alexandre were both paid to speak at WE Charity events

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s mother Margaret and his brother Alexandre have both been paid tens of thousands of dollars to appear at WE Charity events.

In a response to an inquiry from CBC News, WE Charity has provided details of the speaking fees paid to both individuals for their participation at events between 2016 and 2020.

Both Margaret and Alexandre are registered with the Speakers’ Spotlight Bureau, which arranges appearances for clients in exchange for negotiated fees.

Margaret spoke at approximately 28 events and received honoraria amounting to $250,000. Alexandre spoke at eight events and received approximately $32,000.

May 20, 2016

Prime Minister Trudeau and his government have been under fire since announcing on June 25 they were awarding a $19.5 million sole-source contract to WE Charity to administer the Canada Student Service Grant, a $912 million program offering grants of between $1,000 and $5,000 to post-secondary students in return for supervised volunteer hours.

WE Charity said last week it was pulling out of administering CSSG, citing the ongoing controversy surrounding it and the government’s decision to give the sole-source contract to WE. Prime Minister Trudeau said the federal government would take over the program.

September 22, 2017

News of the payments to two members of Trudeau’s family seems to contradict WE Charity’s earlier claim that it had “never paid an honorarium” to Margaret Trudeau.

The federal ethics commissioner is investigating the WE contract to administer the volunteer grant, after Conservative and NDP MPs contacted the office raising concerns about the relationship between the charity and the prime minister’s family.

This evening, the Prime Minister’s Office confirmed that — as CTV News first reported — the prime minister’s spouse, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, “received $1,500” for participating in a WE event in 2012, before Trudeau became leader of the Liberal Party.

August 20, 2019

“The prime minister has never received payment for any events with WE,” the PMO said.

Trudeau admitted to reporters earlier this week that he did not recuse himself from cabinet discussions that led to the decision to award the contract to WE Charity.

December 3, 2015

CBC News contacted WE Charity to clarify the terms under which the prime minister and members of his family had appeared at past WE Day events.

“Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Madame Sophie Grégoire Trudeau and Madame Margaret Trudeau have participated in WE Charity events and programs over the years,” a WE spokesperson told CBC News late in the evening on June 25.

“The charity has never paid an honorarium to these individuals for their involvement in these programs and events.”

The charity said Sophie Grégoire Trudeau’s involvement as an “ambassador and ally” has been “entirely on a volunteer basis and travel expenses related to this involvement were paid for by WE Charity.”

On Thursday, WE Charity emailed CBC News, saying the organization wanted to reach out “proactively” to “provide you with some updated information.”

Less than an hour after the WE statement went out Thursday, Canadaland reported on its website that it had records showing Speakers’ Spotlight had invoiced Free the Children (the not-for-profit arm of WE, now called WE Charity) directly for some of Margaret Trudeau’s speaker’s fees — and had asked WE about the discrepancy. (CBC) 

 

Tuesday April 7, 2020

April 7, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday April 7, 2020

Trump and 3M reach deal to allow N95 face masks to be exported to Canada

The Trump administration has agreed a deal with the US manufacturer 3M to import more than 166m respirators from China over the next three months and allow 3M to continue exporting its US-made respirators.

Coronavirus cartoons

The agreement breaks a deadlock which resulted in Washington stopping nearly three million of the specialized masks from being exported to Ontario, stirring fears that Canada’s most populous province would run out of supplies for medical staff battling coronavirus by the end of the week.

Donald Trump, who had lambasted 3M over the weekend, had warm words for the company on Tuesday, following the agreement, and its chairman and CEO, Mike Roman, offered praise for the president.

“I want to thank President Trump and the administration for their leadership and collaboration,” Roman said in a written statement. “These imports will supplement the 35 million N95 respirators we currently produce per month in the United States.”

Under the plan, 3M will import 166.5m respirators (masks which form a seal over the mouth and nose and offer much greater protection than surgical masks) from its factories in China, over the coming three months.

Meanwhile, the 3M statement said: “The plan will also enable 3M to continue sending US produced respirators to Canada and Latin America, where 3M is the primary source of supply.”

The clash with 3M and Canada began on Thursday when Donald Trump invoked the 1950 Defense Production Act giving the government “any or all authority” to stop 3M exporting N95 respirators to Canada and Latin America.

March 26, 2020

The masks, which filter out 95% of airborne particles, are seen as a critical tool for frontline healthcare workers in the fight against Covid-19

At a press conference on Monday, Ontario’s premier, Doug Ford, said the 500,000 masks had been cleared for release, but nearly three million masks were intercepted by US officials at 3M’s South Dakota Facility.

“We know that the US isn’t allowing supplies across the US border,” Ford said. “The hard truth is, our supplies in Ontario are getting very low and the more new cases we get, the more demand there is on our resources.”

3M initially resisted the president’s executive order, warning in a statement the move would have “significant humanitarian implications” for countries desperate for safety equipment.

Over the weekend, Trump harshly criticised the company, warning it would have “a big price to pay”.

“We need the masks. We don’t want other people getting it,” Trump said in a Saturday briefing to reporters. “That’s why we’re instituting [the] Defense Production Act. You could call it retaliation because that’s what it is: it’s a retaliation. If people don’t give us what we need for our people, we’re going to be very tough.” (The Guardian) 

 

Pandemic Response from r/worldpoliticalhumour

 

Tuesday September 24, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday September 24, 2019

Premier Doug Ford blasts Trudeau’s ‘unacceptable’ donning of racist blackface

Premier Doug Ford has strongly denounced Justin Trudeau’s penchant for donning blackface and charged there’s a “double standard” over how the Liberal leader’s past misdeeds are being reported.

September 20, 2019

“It was unacceptable back in 2001, it’s unacceptable now,” said the Progressive Conservative premier, who has emerged as a favourite target of the federal Liberals during this election.

“The people are going to decide. They’re going to have the opportunity to decide if they want the prime minister to continue being prime minister or they want a change,” he said Friday.

Last Wednesday, Time magazine published a 2001 photo of Trudeau dressed as Aladdin at a gala when he was a 29-year-old private school teacher at Vancouver’s West Point Grey Academy.

In the wake of that, other photos have surface of him in blackface and brown face.

February 22, 2018

While Trudeau has repeatedly apologized for his transgressions, on Sunday he ducked reporters’ questions when asked if he could recall the last time he wore racist makeup.

Ford took a swipe at the media, saying there’s a “double standard right across the board” in how the controversy is being covered.

“If it was a Conservative, I think it would have been a different story,” the premier told CTV.

In a separate interview with AM640’s Alex Pierson, Ford was asked if he had ever donned blackface.

“No. I wouldn’t be that stupid,” he said to Pierson.

July 10, 2018

Last Wednesday, Time magazine published a 2001 photo of Trudeau dressed as Aladdin at a gala when he was a 29-year-old private school teacher at Vancouver’s West Point Grey Academy.

In the wake of that, other photos have surface of him in blackface and brown face.

While Trudeau has repeatedly apologized for his transgressions, on Sunday he ducked reporters’ questions when asked if he could recall the last time he wore racist makeup.

Ford took a swipe at the media, saying there’s a “double standard right across the board” in how the controversy is being covered.

Series: Young Doug Ford

The premier has been a lightning rod in the Oct. 21 federal election campaign with the Liberals mocking his “for the people” slogan in their advertising and Grit candidates in Ontario attacking his government’s policies.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer refused to utter the name “Ford” even when campaigning 700 metres from his Etobicoke home last week.

A new batch of Tory ads tie Trudeau to former Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne, whom Ford’s Tories trounced in the 2018 provincial election, but they do not mention the current premier. (Hamilton Spectator) 

 

 

Thursday March 14, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday March 14, 2019

‘Trudeau? Scandal? I don’t believe it’: As controversy rocks Canada’s PM, the world winces — then shrugs

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s political crisis has shaken Ottawa — and now, the tremors are starting to register abroad.

December 21, 2017

Outside the white-marble Newseum building in Washington on Thursday, the morning’s copy of the Globe and Mail sat behind glass, displayed alongside the front pages of newspapers from all 50 U.S. states, plus the District of Columbia.

Janet McCarty, a retired civil servant living in Washington, perused the headlines. Only one publication — the Globe — led with the latest on the SNC-Lavalin scandal, in which the Prime Minister’s Office stands accused of meddling in a criminal prosecution case against the Quebec engineering giant.

McCarty grimaced. Like many others on the political left, she’s always considered Trudeau an unimpeachable moral authority and darling of the international left.

“If this is true, then Justin is not the person that we thought he was,” she said.

McCarty lamented that another world leader with a global outlook, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, has decided not to seek re-election. Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Theresa May, a Conservative, has faced at least eight cabinet resignations in less than two years over her controversial Brexit deal.

January 18, 2019

“Justin. I mean, they’re all — Angela Merkel, Theresa May — everybody’s going down the toilet,” McCarty said.

Trudeau’s brand as a global liberal icon is strong in some parts of the U.S., which might explain why Manuel Macias, 36, was so shocked to hear about the SNC-Lavalin affair when he stopped to scan the Newseum headlines this week.

“Trudeau? A scandal? I don’t believe it.

“In this day and age, we don’t really have a lot of shining light all across the world,” said Macias, who identifies as a liberal. “Unless something really comes out that’s proven facts, why throw dirt on him when we’ve got such a good positive role model?”

March 2, 2019

If the SNC-Lavalin debacle has been slow to gain traction outside of Canada, it may also have to do with domestic-scandal fatigue, at least in Britain and the U.S.

In London, John Prideaux, the U.S. editor for The Economist, cited Washington’s woes, as well as Britain’s mismanagement of a plan to withdraw from the European Union, as reasons why some Britons and Americans might not be tuning in.

“What’s happening in Canada looks to me like a more conventional political scandal that you get in a healthy political culture, where people are really held accountable for what they’ve done,” Prideaux said.

That said, the SNC-Lavalin affair has “broken through” the British press — no easy feat. (Continued: CBC)