Scott Thompson: Justin Trudeau needs to answer more questions on WE Charity scandal

A finance minister was fired, thousands of students lost out on summer grant money, and a Canadian charity has folded up its operations after 25 years as the WE Charity scandal continues to unravel at the prime minister’s feet.

Craig and Marc Kielburger, the high-profile brothers who ran the youth-driven charity, are stepping down from the organization they founded in 1995, claiming COVID 19 and the political fallout from being too cozy with Justin Trudeau’s government, family and friends took them out.

Many were questioning the fiscal health of the charity, suggesting it was on shaky ground before it was offered the exclusive right to orchestrate the Liberal government’s COVID-19 student volunteer grant program.

That was a contract, according to the prime minister, that only WE Charity was qualified to administer — and he was prepared to pay them $43 million to do so.

Without the deal, it appears WE Charity was dead in the water, dealing with the same shortfalls every other charity is suffering from during a global pandemic — but with bad planning thrown into the mix.

3:13 RCMP ‘examining’ Ottawa’s WE Charity contract

• RCMP ‘examining’ Ottawa’s WE Charity contract
• Documents shed new light into WE Charity affair; Conservatives accuse Liberals of coverup
• Trudeau says they’ve released WE Charity documents for review, don’t want election
• WE controversy: Bill Morneau says he wishes he had ‘done things differently’ with charity
• NDP ethics critic Charlie Angus questions why WE Charity never registered to lobby feds
• WE executives say charity now registered to lobby

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former Finance Minister Bill Morneau are still under investigation by the ethics commissioner for their role in the scandal, but other committees were dismantled when the PM prorogued government until Sept. 23, when a throne speech could trigger an election,

Opposition parties have acknowledged they will not be drawn into Trudeau’s election trap and instead will restart these committees to get to the bottom of the Liberal involvement in this latest scandal.

Considering the collapse of this once-respected charity, those answers are needed from the prime minister now more than ever.

​Scott Thompson is the host of The Scott Thompson Show on Global News Radio 900 CHML Hamilton.​​​​