(UPDATE) Rebel News success: WE Charity scam scrapped (sort-of)
(July 6 UPDATE) The story has been updated here to correct misinformation from the Elections Canada website. This information seemed to show that Craig Kielburger may have exceeded the legal donation limit. An Elections Canada spokesperson denies this, saying the double entry was a clerical error.
(July 3 UPDATE) The work that Rebel News published last night helped to cancel a nearly billion-dollar boondoggle.
The WE Charity has been stripped of their sole-sourced contract just 16 hours after we uncovered that the founders, the Kielburger brothers, were financiers of Trudeau’s leadership campaign and the Liberal Party itself.
This WE Scam was poised to be as big as the Lav-Scam, and it still might be.
There is more to uncover.
Here’s the original story:
$900M in political kickbacks: Before Trudeau funneled nearly a billion dollars through the WE Charity, the founders financed his leadership campaign and the Liberal Party directly.
The founders of the charity playing host to the nearly billion-dollar Canada Student Service Grant financed Justin Trudeau’s leadership campaign along with directly funding the Liberal Party of Canada, Rebel News has learned.
According to documents we’ve uncovered, Craig Kielburger donated $2,400 in two installments to Justin Trudeau directly in 2013. In 2011 he also donated to the Ontario Liberal Party.
Craig’s brother and co-founder, Marc Kielburger, donated to the Scott Brison leadership campaign and directly to the Liberal Party coffers.
Over a billion dollars in the last decade
Over the course of Trudeau’s government the Kielburger organization has scooped over $5,197,155 in taxpayer funded contracts with Canadian Heritage, Employment and Social Development Canada, and Environment and Climate Change Canada.
Trudeau has been under fire recently for funneling almost a billion dollars to the WE Charity to implement the CSSG on behalf of the Government of Canada. Trudeau says that they are the "only organization capable of administering the program."
WE will pay student "volunteers" 33 per cent below minimum wage in some cases to support the efforts of the left-wing charity. Unemployed college students who are unable to find work during the pandemic are being directed by the government to work for the Kielburger brothers' charity at less than a living wage.
Students will be “volunteering” for a stunted salary, paid by taxpayers, to become progressive social influencers for two brothers that are financial donors to Justin Trudeau’s political campaign.
Spending so much it was easy to miss
Back in the early days of the Wuhan Pandemic, you might remember Justin Trudeau announcing government spending programs every single day. A day would not pass, not even a weekend, without Canada’s Prime Minister announcing grants and cheques here, and government programs there. It would be easy to forget when he announced that students would be eligible for a “Service Grant.”
Many folks, even those who were upset that the government was rambunctiously accumulating debt thought to themselves “oh, alright – food banks might get some extra help, and maybe seniors lawns might get mowed and a hot meal delivered.”
The Canadian Student Service Grant turned out to be anything but, and is becoming Justin Trudeau’s new SNC-Lavalin. Instead of helping young Canadians do good work in their community, taxpayers are paying off Trudeau’s debt to the Kielburger Brothers. The $900 million will be directed towards WE programs, but it is unclear how much the organization is retaining for a management fee.
The connection that the Trudeau family has with the WE Charity has been reported on before – but not the financial ties the founders have to Trudeau’s political exploits.
Sophie Trudeau has her own section on the WE website, outlining how important she is to the cause, also highlighting some of her international celebrity junkets.
The Trudeau family has directly benefited from the success of WE, and vice-versa. Sophie Trudeau repeatedly goes on international speaking trips to New York and London (where the Prime Minister’s wife famously transmitted COVID-19 to Idris Elba after close personal contact).
Rebel News reached out to the Kielburger brothers and will update the story if they return comment.
Keean Bexte
Journalist
Keean Bexte is Rebel News' travelling correspondent. Keean has broken stories from the White House to Hong Kong, covering the other side of the story wherever it is.