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Thoughts on WE. As I try to unscramble what we know, what we've been told and what we heard yesterday, it strikes me there are two threads here. One is about WE itself as a charity -- its governance, operations and its behaviour vis a vis elected officials. 1/
The second is about the behaviour of gov't ministers vis a vis WE, esp. the PM and MinFin. Politically, it is this thread that is of most interest to me as a political scientist. The first thread is of interest to me as a citizen, but it is not (directly) a political issue. 2/
Both the PM (or more accurately the PM's family) and the MinFin (as well as members of his family) have long-standing relationships with WE. They have worked for WE in various capacities. In and of itself, there is nothing wrong with that. 3/
The PM's mother is indeed a noted advocate for mental health issues & fully entitled to accept paid speaking gigs to promote those issues. The MinFin's daughter has every right to take paid employment with WE. 4/
The issue is whether this creates a conflict of interest for the PM & MinFin should WE become the potential recipient of a large fed agmt to run a govt program. To my mind, the conflict is obvious. 5/
Thus, when the PM & MinFin did not recuse themselves from the decision to award WE a large fed contribution agmt, they, to my mind, violated the ethics guidelines that govern their behaviour. That they both apologized for this is proof that THEY now recognize the conflict. 6/
The political question is, now what? The PM & a senior minister violated ethics guidelines by their own admission. The PM is subject to his 3rd ethics investigation in 5 yrs. The minister further admitted to not repaying a $41K travel bill for a WE trip until a few days ago. 7/
It matters not whether the PM was "friends" w the Keilburgers. You don't need to be friends for there to be a conflict. It does matter whether WE got more money from the previous CPC gov't. All of that is beside the point. 8/
What matters is whether there will be consequences for a PM being subject to his 3rd ethics investigation in 5 yrs (the 2nd dealing with conflict of interest) & a FinMin who not only allowed himself to be in a conflict of interest but whose cheque writing is curiously timed 9/
The govt position seems to be that saying your sorry is enough. To my mind, this is insufficient. Remember, the PM's 1st response was to say that he didn't know how his family earned their money. Beyond being ludicrous, it is his job to know, precisely for reasons like this 10/
That neither even considered recusing themselves speaks volumes to my mind. It says the PM has not learned from past mistakes (regardless of his apologies) and that the FinMin lacks the judgement to be the guy in charge of the nation's finances. 11/
To play the old fogey I am quickly becoming, there was a time when ministers resigned over such behaviour. That was the rule -- screw up, get caught in an ethical violation, cause embarrassment to the gov't -- ministers resigned. I miss those days. 12/
Not because I don't like the Liberals (I don't, btw) but because it illustrated a lesson I try to instill in my students. People in politics in all parties are generally people of integrity trying to do what they think is right. They're not all crooks & charlatans. 13/
Ministers who resigned when they screwed up showed that we took this stuff seriously. Good God, Sinc Stevens resigned over some bad tuna; Francis Fox for signing a medical form w a false name. You violate the public trust, even unintentionally, you go. 14/
Both WE and the gov't have tried the Maude Flanders defense, "Won't someone think of the children!!" in an effort to deflect attention from their actions. Well, yes, let's think about what we tell children about the integrity of our elected officials. Resign gentlemen. 15/15
