Marc Kielburger, screen left, and Craig Kielburger, screen right, appear as witnesses via videoconference during a House of Commons finance committee meeting in the Wellington Building in Ottawa on July 28, 2020.Good afternoon. Bon après-midi. My name is Craig Kielburger. This is my brother, Marc. Firstly, thank you, Mr. Chair. Our gratitude to the rest of the committee. We’ve been looking forward to this opportunity to speak with you here today.
Transcript: Former WE Charity board chair Michelle Douglas’s opening remarks to the federal finance committee WE Charity agreed to implement the Canada Student Service Grant not to be helped by government, but to help government, and to help young people across Canada. This program was developed in the midst of a global pandemic when governments and the private sector were scrambling.
We were chosen because we were willing to leverage every part of our 25 years of experience and to build this program at the breakneck speed required to have an impact for Canadian youth over the summer. WE Charity had experience in this area. We had previously built two large-scale youth service programs. When Ontario introduced the mandatory 40 hours of community service, we developed a program for many school boards across the province. And the college [indiscernible], which is the largest U.
We would never have picked up the phone when the civil service called asking us to help young Canadians get through the pandemic if we had known the consequences: that young people would not get the help they need now and that 25 years of WE Charities programs, helping millions of youth, would be in jeopardy. We are most sorry for the students of Canada.
Do you mean obituary?
It was more like a funeral...