1) At the Finance Committee today, Min. Morneau starts with detailing his family’s connections to WE. Says he didn’t think he had a conflict but because of the perception of a conflict, in hindsight, he should have recused himself from the Cabinet discussion on #CSSG. #cdnpoli

2) Morneau said he has recused himself from other Cabinet discussions, but with WE he didn’t think that his daughter working as an administration assistant at WE gave him a conflict. In hindsight, he should have, and apologizes for this.

3) Morneau says there were 2 trips he & his family took to WE sites in Kenya & Ecuador. His was to help build a school. His intent was to pay the transport, accommodation & meal etc expenses incurred, but on reviewing his records recently, he realized he wasn’t charged for them.

4) Upon discovering he wasn’t charged for these expenses, and therefore didn’t pay them, Morneau then repaid them (~$40K). He apologizes for the error & he has provided info about this mistake to the Ethics Commissioner. His intent had been to pay for these expenses.

5) Morneau sets the context within which the CSSG was approved. To respond to the pandemic, the govt delivered 70 programs with $200B of direct support to Canadians since March. They delivered at great speed & on a scale that hasn’t been seen in recent times.

6) They knew mistakes would be made & would need to be corrected, but the govt’s focus at the time was to help Canadians weather the pandemic & the economic fallout. Morneau clarified that he wasn’t the Minister responsible for CSSG or for signing the Contribution Agreement.

7) Morneau noted WE is located in his riding & he has spoken to Craig Kielburger from time to time. They spoke during this period when he called Craig about how COVID was impacting Canadians. He received WE’s Apr 9 entrepreneurship proposal but didn’t review or respond to it.

8) Michelle Kovacevic, Finance ADM, said there were many discussions in April on how to deliver student support. When CSSG was announced on Apr 22, no decision had been made re which third party to go with. ESDC was charged with designing the program.

9) On Apr 24 Kovacevic & ESDC officials spoke with WE to understand its capacity to deliver CSSG, but no commitments were made on enlisting them. She clarified that WE’s second proposal (for a service program) isn’t the one govt went with.

10) Canada Service Corps was asked about its capacity to deliver a service program and it came back with fewer placements than what the govt wanted. The “ambition & need” was greater than what CSC could deliver.

11) ESDC ultimately decided WE was “best placed” to deliver CSSG at the level required and within the short timeframe. In sum, today’s testimony confirms that it was the civil service that came up with the recommendation to use WE as the third party to deliver the CSSG.