Trudeau Family Incurred Nearly $160,000 In Expenses At WE Charity Events - Co-Founders

TORONTO (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 29th July, 2020) The family of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau incurred nearly $160,000 in expenses at WE Charity speaking engagements, figures provided by the charity's co-founders to a parliamentary committee revealed.

Controversy erupted after multiple investigative pieces chronicled Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill Morneau's close ties to the WE Charity, which was awarded a $670-million sole-source contract to administer a government-sponsored student volunteer program.

"Margaret Trudeau came to a total of 28 WE days over a span of 5 years... from 2016 to 2020. The average expense there was $5,998 [$4,484 USD]," WE Charity co-founder Marc Kielburger told the Standing Committee on Finance on Tuesday.

The figures provided by Marc and his brother Craig showed that the prime minister's mother, Margaret, incurred a total of $125,573 in expenses at 28 charity speaking engagements, while wife Sophie Gregoire accepted $18,936 in expenses over seven events and brother Alexandre incurred $14,637 over eight events.

The testimony also revealed that the trips Morneau and his family took to participate in the charity's projects in Kenya and Ecuador in 2017, were intended to be "complimentary." Morneau told the committee last week that he reimbursed the WE Charity for the trips in the amount of $69,650, including a $30,830 previously uncovered tab on the day of the testimony.

The former chair of the board of directors of WE charity, Michelle Douglas, told parliamentarians that the board was told that speakers were not compensated for WE Day event appearances.

Trudeau and Morneau are now subjects of an ethics probe. Both officials have said the decision to award the contract was recommended by the public service.