Ministers, top public servant to be grilled by committee on WE affair

Two federal cabinet ministers and the country's top public servant will be grilled today about how a charity with close ties to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wound up administering a $912-million student grant program.

The House of Commons ethics committee is scheduled to hear from Youth Minister Bardish Chagger, Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough and Ian Shugart, clerk of the Privy Council.

The committee is ostensibly conducting a review of the existing safeguards in place to prevent conflicts of interest when the federal government is deciding how to spend taxpayers' dollars.

But opposition MPs are sure to focus more pointedly on the government's agreement with WE Charity to administer the grant program, which had been intended to encourage students to engage in summer volunteer work related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chagger was the minister responsible for the program, which has now been abandoned after becoming mired in controversy.

Qualtrough is in charge of the department whose public servants concluded they were not capable of delivering the program and who, according to the government, recommended that WE Charity was the only group capable of delivering it.

Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill Morneau, who also has close family ties to WE Charity, are both under investigation by the federal ethics commissioner.

Both have apologized for failing to recuse themselves when cabinet approved the recommended agreement with the charity.