Like many of his conservative colleagues, Arnold Viersen is raising questions about the federal government’s ties to a charity.
Several reports indicate Prmie Minsiter, Jsutin Trudeau and members of his family have been paid by the WE Charity in the past for speaking engagements.
The charity was recently awarded a contract of over $900 million to manage a federal student grant program.
Viersen says this is not the first time Trudeau has been accused of violating ethics.
“This is the first time that it is nearly a billion dollars we are talking about,” says Viersen.
“This is Trudeau handing out money to his friends and I don’t think this will be the last time.”
Viersen also explains to the Trending 55 Newsroom that there is a program in place to help fund summer jobs for students.
“Nearly 100,000 students get funding through the Canada Summer Jobs Program,” he says.
“It seems odd not to use that piece of the bureaucracy to ramp that program up.”
Viersen also points out that the program is often over-subscribed, meaning several applicants get left out and says many in his riding get left out.
“There are always several people in the riding applying and not receiving money because of a lack of funding in the program,” explains Viersen.
“In my riding, around 35 percent of the people that apply don’t get it because the program runs out of money before we can get everyone a job. There are a lot of positions that needed to be filled and we could have done that very quickly through the summer jobs program.”
Ethics Commissioner, Mario Dion is investigating Trudeau’s roll in this situation, along with Finance Minister, Bill Morneau as well as Natural Resources Minister, Seamus O’Regan.
