WE Charity says email to Morneau was about COVID-19

WE Charity is shedding more light on a controversial email from co-founder Craig Kielburger to then-finance minister Bill Morneau this spring, saying it was about a possible second wave of COVID-19 — not securing government business. The message was among thousands of pages of documents about the WE Charity affair the Liberal government released this week as it prorogued Parliament.

But like many of the newly released records it was heavily blacked out, making it difficult to know what Kielburger was communicating to Morneau. The document was among those Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre pointed to in a news conference Wednesday in alleging a cover-up of the Liberal government’s decision to have WE Charity administer a multimillion-dollar student-volunteer program.

In a statement Thursday, WE Charity said the April 26 message included two reports from epidemiologists concerning predictions about a secondwave of COVID-19 — reports Kielburger had mentioned to Morneau in a phone call the previous day.

The charity said the phone call, as Morneau has testified to a parliamentary committee, was made by the minister as part of a series of calls to businesses and non-profit organizations on the effects of COVID-19.