Juno News - July 21, 2020


Who else is involved in the WE Charity scandal？


Episode Stats

Length

3 minutes

Words per Minute

213.92618

Word Count

850

Sentence Count

44


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 I've worked in the charity and not-for-profit sector for pretty much all of my professional
00:00:11.280 career as an adult. And that's perhaps why the WE scandal bothers me so much. It's because I
00:00:16.320 know what goes on in charities and in not-for-profit organizations. Now, just for clarity, there are
00:00:22.160 three types of corporations you can have in Canada. There is a charity, so these are organizations
00:00:25.840 that give tax receipts. They could be a religious institution, or it could be just a charity that
00:00:29.680 does good charitable works, which is defined by the CRA, and they give tax receipts. So you can
00:00:34.000 deduct them against your income at the end of the year. Then there are not-for-profit corporations,
00:00:38.480 which are kind of like charities where they're ideally supposed to be doing some kind of good
00:00:42.400 works. But the difference is that the corporations itself cannot make a profit in that there are no
00:00:48.000 shareholders that can get dividends or there is no owner's equity that can be taken. There's nothing
00:00:52.320 that can be removed as a profit. Now, there can be salaries, which you might be a employee and be a
00:00:57.840 director in the not-for-profit corporation, but it's not a profit directly as a for-profit corporation.
00:01:03.360 Whereas again, more people are familiar with a for-profit corporation where that you can get
00:01:07.600 dividends, you can get shareholders' equity, you can just take direct profits without having to be
00:01:11.280 an employee of the corporation. You can just make money for being an owner without having anything to
00:01:15.280 do with the day-to-day operations. Now, the issue here with the WE Charity is not just the fact that
00:01:21.440 there are so many shady things, so many things that are allegedly criminal that have been going on.
00:01:26.720 It's the fact that this is a multi-layer problem. You cannot in a charity or not-for-profit, none
00:01:32.000 that I have seen in my over, it's gotta be 10, 15 years of experience, none that I have seen where
00:01:37.760 you can simply sign off on so much money without having multiple, multiple people look at and
00:01:44.160 approve these deals. There are usually audited financial statements at the end of every year.
00:01:48.320 There are usually numerous boards, committees, people that are responsible, people that are
00:01:52.720 literally legally responsible, by the way. I'm not just saying responsible for that. People that are
00:01:56.480 literally legally responsible for what happens to this money and the operations of these organizations.
00:02:02.560 So that is super, super disappointing. But to top it all off, the thing that really,
00:02:07.680 really irks me is this. This is Liberal MPs filibustering an ethics committee meeting that
00:02:13.280 was supposed to investigate what was happening here and really just launch a probe into all that
00:02:18.960 happened with the WE Charity. But instead, Liberal MPs decided to filibuster the meeting, so they just
00:02:23.920 delayed and filibustering is just when you delay, you waste time procedurally, you give speeches to
00:02:28.480 the maximum amount of time, you raise the maximum amount of objections, you're just trying to run out
00:02:32.000 the clock if it were a sports game. So you're just trying to run out the clock and filibuster so that
00:02:35.840 you can never get a final vote. And that's basically what they did. And that's super, super upsetting,
00:02:40.560 because in a democracy, in a Liberal democracy which we live, you would like to think that any alleged
00:02:47.440 criminal behavior or any appearance of criminal behavior is going to be investigated and that such a
00:02:52.000 thing should not even be possible. And yet here we are. And that goes, it doesn't even matter who's
00:02:56.880 in government, by the way. It makes no difference to me whether it's the Liberals or the NDPs or the
00:03:01.200 Conservatives or the People's Party or the Bloc or the Greens. I really, really don't care who's in
00:03:05.760 there. But the fact that this is something that can be done to filibuster and stop something that has
00:03:11.120 all the appearances, all the trappings of something that stinks to high heaven, that is really super
00:03:17.200 disappointing. So I think as Canadians, we all need to be a lot more upset about what's going on,
00:03:21.840 because ultimately, this is not only our public money, but these are the people that we trust to
00:03:26.080 take care of us. This is a time of COVID. This is a time of economic uncertainties. These are the
00:03:30.400 people that we're putting our trust in to make decisions on behalf of Canadians and for the benefit
00:03:35.440 of all Canadians, not for the benefit of their own pocketbook. And that seems to be what has happened
00:03:40.000 here. So let's hope we get an investigation into this. Let's hope we get to the bottom of it,
00:03:43.680 because as Canadians, it's super important that we find out or else we'll lose trust in our
00:03:47.520 government. And that is something that is super hard to get back. So for True North,
00:03:50.960 I am Sam Ashkenazi. Have yourself a great day. And I can't wait to read
00:03:54.400 the We Probe report when it all comes out at the end. Thanks so much.