Kielburgers in standoff with House of Commons

WE founders refuse to appear at committees

Conservative members of parliamentary committees scrutinizing the WE Charity scandal have warned the Kielburger brothers — the organization’s co-founders — they could be forced to testify and potentially face legal consequences if they refuse to attend.

The WE founders have declined requests to testify before two House of Commons committees.

Compelling witnesses to appear before committees is a long-standing but infrequently used power. Even rarer would be the circumstance where a warrant is issued by the House of Commons to force a private citizen to explain their refusal, which could involve being held in contempt of Parliament, and lead to prison time.

Peter Milliken, who served as speaker of the House of Commons for a decade, said in 2009 that Parliament has the right to start inquiries, require witness attendance and order documents be produced — rights that Milliken said “are fundamental to (Parliament’s) proper functioning.”

“These rights are as old as Parliament itself.”

While there have been a number of instances in more recent years over summons to committees — including the Commons health committee summoning of Dr. Bruce Aylward, a senior adviser and former assistant director-general with the World Health Organization, over the COVID-19 crisis — no private citizen has been imprisoned since 1913, the last-ditch outcome of such a standoff.

Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre, in a Twitter post on Thursday, said: “I’ve got news for the Kielburgers: you will testify. If not, Parliament can have the Sergeant pay you a visit — and you don’t want that.”

Lawyers for the Kielburgers, in a letter sent to the ethics committee on March 3, indicated that the brothers wouldn’t appear, even in the face of a summons.

“We have great respect for Parliamentarians and the important work of the Committee. That said, we advise, with regret, that our clients will not appear before the Committee, whether in answer to a summons or otherwise,” the letter says.

National Post has reached out to WE for further comment on whether or not the brothers would appear if summoned.

The WE scandal, involving scrutiny of a federal government’s decision to have WE manage a student grant program, is being studied by three different House of Commons committees, made up of Members of Parliament from various parties. The issue, in part, concerns the relationship between WE and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s family.

The finance committee is studying the role of WE in the Canada Student Service Grant program; the ethics committee is studying potential conflicts of interest in government pandemic spending; and the procedure and House affairs committee is studying whether or not the WE controversy had anything to do with the federal Liberals proroguing Parliament in the summer.

Mario Dion, the federal ethics commissioner, is investigating Trudeau and Bill Morneau, the former finance minister, who also has links to WE, for their role in giving WE a $43.5 million contract and not recusing themselves from the decision-making.

The ethics and the procedure and House affairs committees have both requested that Craig and Marc Kielburger come forward and testify. They declined. In a March 3 statement, WE Charity referenced Feb. 28 comments by NDP MP Charlie Angus, who said he wrote to the Canada Revenue Agency and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police requesting an investigation into the charity.

“Accordingly, WE Charity and its leadership are declining the additional requests to testify from the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics and also the Procedure and House Affairs Committee,” said a WE Charity press statement.

The statement said the charity has already testified at various “highly partisan” committee meetings, and that it would continue to work with Dion’s investigation.

At this point, the committees could issue a summons, compelling the Kielburgers to attend. If they continue to refuse, according to the House of Commons Procedure and Practice, the committee can report it to the House of Commons, and the House “then may order the witness to appear” and they will be “called to the Bar” — a literal brass bar across the House of Commons — to explain themselves.

The House has the power, similar to a court, to compel someone’s presence.

“If the witness disobeys the order, the witness may be declared guilty of contempt,” the House manual says.

Summons have been used in a variety of instances.

During the Airbus affair, which involved allegations that Airbus Industries paid government members during Brian Mulroney’s time as prime minister, to be awarded a contract for new planes for Air Canada.

In 2007, as the House ethics committee was studying the affair, Karlheinz Schreiber, who had been the chairman of Airbus Industries, was in a Toronto jail awaiting extradition. Given time constraints and, according to then-justice minister Rob Nicholson’s claim he couldn’t interfere with extradition, Speaker Millike issued a warrant to have Schreiber moved from Toronto to Ottawa to testify.

But it has been more than a century since someone’s been tossed in the slammer for refusing to testify in parliament. That last happened in 1913, when R.C. Miller refused to answer questions before the House of Commons upon being summoned to testify. The House ordered him imprisoned, and he stayed behind bars for several months.

The power to call witnesses to the bar has been used at least 10 other times, including against Louis Riel in 1874, who did not appear. Ottawa’s John Heney, an alderman, was also called to the bar in 1873, and ordered taken into custody by the Sergeant-at-arms for attempting to bribe a member.