OTTAWA -- After initially declining a committee appearance before the House of Commons ethics committee, WE Charity founders Craig and Marc Kielburger have proposed to attend with the presence of their legal representative.
In a letter to the clerk of the committee, obtained by Â鶹´«Ã½, counsel William McDowell cites committee member and NDP MP Charlie Angus’ call for the RCMP and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) to investigate the charity’s financial dealings, as the cause for requiring legal presence at a future meeting.
"We wrote to you on March 3rd to raise the unfairness facing our clients should they appear before the committee and be questioned concerning the very matters which Mr. Angus has placed in the hands of the RCMP. We continue to have those concerns; indeed, a lawyer would be negligent simply to allow his clients to appear before the committee in these circumstances," he writes.
It comes after the committee voted unanimously Monday to summon the Kielburgers to testify in their ongoing study into "Questions of conflict of interest and lobbying in relation to pandemic spending."
The brothers testified last summer at the House of Commons finance committee over the now-nixed summer student grants program and the organization’s close ties to Prime Minster Justin Trudeau and his family.
Angus requested the RCMP and CRA investigations after a former donor, U.S. television journalist Reed Cowan, alleged that the plaque on a school he had funded in Kenya through the charity had been replaced with a plaque in the name of another donor.
WE said the incident was an unfortunate mistake; Angus called it proof of a "pattern of duplicitous relations with donors."
Cowan made the allegations during testimony in February to the ethics committee, which in turn had invited the Kielburger brothers to testify on Monday.
“Reed Cowan has a right to get answers from the Kielburgers and those answers should have been presented to our committee today. Would the Kielburgers have faced hard questions? Certainly. But when you’re in the business of raising charitable funds, trust and accountability is sacrosanct. So you show up, and answer the tough questions because hard questions on fundraising are also fair questions," said Angus at Monday's meeting.
McDowell proposes a solution to get through "this impasse."
"Would you raise with the Committee whether I might be granted standing, as counsel, to appear with my clients should they decide to testify? I expect that they would be prepared to appear and assist the Committee in addressing matters genuinely relevant and material to the Committee’s mandate. At the same time, they should not be expected to answer questions on those matters which members have referred to the RCMP and CRA, out of respect for the integrity of any investigations which those agencies may pursue," he writes.
Should the committee approve the offer, McDowell suggests a March 15 meeting.
With files from The Canadian Press.
