Red Deer – Lacombe MP Blaine Calkins calls on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to resign

What We Know About Trudeau’s Latest Ethics Scandal

Over the past several weeks Canadians have been shocked at the details coming to light regarding Justin Trudeau’s WE Scandal. Justin Trudeau and the Kielburgers have been happy to benefit from each other for years. While they are quick to downplay their relationship, the facts tell a different story. According to WE Charity, Justin Trudeau and his family have participated in over 50 WE Events where they have been able to share their political message with young Canadians.

In 2017 WE created a campaign style ad featuring Justin Trudeau for Canada 150 and even pressured employees to go to a political event for the Minister of Finance in his Toronto riding. The Kielburger brothers have donated to the Liberal Party in the past, and under the Trudeau government WE has received upwards of $5.5 million in government funding.

This reciprocal relationship is concerning all on its own, before even considering the current scandal regarding the Canada Student Service Grant, Justin Trudeau and WE. The twists and turns in the story can be difficult to track, but it is clear that Justin Trudeau and former Finance Minister Bill Morneau have once again failed to live up to their legal obligations laid out in Canada’s conflict of interest laws. Here is what we know so far.

In April, WE sent an unsolicited proposal for a youth entrepreneurship program to Minister Chagger and Minister Ng. Ten days later WE received a call from Rachel Wernick, a senior bureaucrat with Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) about the yet to be announced Canada Student Service Grant (CSSG). When the program was announced to the public a few days later WE co-founder Craig Kielburger sent Ms. Wernick a proposal to administer the grant that same day.

According to the Kielburgers someone at the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) contacted them the next day about delivering the program, which they later recanted claiming it was a public servant who contacted them. Ms. Wernick is credited as being the public servant who recommended that WE was the only organization that could deliver the program.

On June 25th WE Charity was announced as the partner for the $900 million CSSG program, and Canadians were told they would receive $19.5 million to administer it. When asked, Trudeau suggested there was no conflict of interest because he and his wife had never been paid by the organization. A few days later Conservatives asked the Auditor General to probe the deal since parliamentary oversight was hindered by the program being outsourced, and due to concern over the well documented relationship between Trudeau and the Kielburgers.

By July 3rd Mark and Craig Kielburger announced that WE would be giving up the contract to administer the CSSG. On the same day, the Ethics Commissioner confirmed that he would be starting an investigation into Justin Trudeau for the third time. Less than a week later WE confirmed that the Prime Minister’s Mother, Margaret Trudeau had been paid $312,000 for 28 appearances since 2016 and that his brother, Alexandre Trudeau, was paid $40,000 for 8 events in 2017-2018. They also acknowledged that the Prime Minister’s wife, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau had received $1,400 for an appearance in 2012.

We later found out that on top of those fees WE Charity also paid an additional $212,846 in expenses between the three members of the Trudeau family. This brings the total remuneration to over $566,000. This revelation, in part, led to the Conservatives writing to the Commissioner of the RCMP to request that they look into this matter as it pertains to potential criminal code violations.

The Prime Minister isn’t the only one with an apparent conflict of interest in this matter, with former Minister Morneau also having close family ties with WE. Like the Prime Minister, he did not recuse himself despite the fact that his one daughter works for WE and another has been a speaker in the past and received a book endorsement. This led to the Ethics Commissioner launching an investigation into former Minister Morneau as well.

At an appearance before the Finance Committee former Minister Morneau would later go on to acknowledge that he and his wife had recently made two large donations, roughly $50,0000 each, and that he had also just written a cheque for over $41,000 to reimburse WE for expenses he and his family incurred on two vacations to Africa and South America, where they visited WE projects. WE later confirmed that the complementary trip was offered to former Minister Morneau and his family because of their history of significant donations to similar programs. These revelations led to the Conservative caucus calling for the now former Minister to resign.

The Finance Committee and the Ethics Committee began to look into this latest scandal, and the testimony and information they have received has painted a confusing and troubling picture. They uncovered a number of very concerning details before the Prime Minister prorogued Parliament in order to shut down the committees.

· WE stood to collect $45.53 million in fees, over double what was initially stated.

· The program, originally announced at over $900 million, was actually contracted out at $544 million instead. Why the discrepancy?

· The Clerk of the Privy Council stated that there were no red flags when considering WE, but that the Public Service didn’t probe the organizations finances. This is quite odd.

· The President of the Public Service Alliance disputed that only WE could have delivered the CSSG, stating that to say the Public Service was unable to was insulting. He pointed to the various government grant programs, Canada Summer Jobs and the Canada Service Corps as comparable programs. The theory that only WE could handle the program was further dismantled when it turned out that they had to subcontract part of the program because they weren’t able to deliver it in French.

· The contract for the CSSG wasn’t actually with WE Charity, but with WE Charity Foundation, a shell foundation that had no previous experience in delivering these types of programs.

· The former Chair of the Board at WE Charity testified that she had been forced to resign by Craig Kielburger for requesting financial documents from WE Executives to justify the layoff of hundreds of employees.

· The Kielburger brothers testified, claiming that they were running the program as a favour to Canada, and that their organization was to be reimbursed for expenses, but not make money off of the program. In a leaked document, a draft budget dated May 4th outlined some expenses including for staff salary. This included 175 program managers at $30,0000 each for 4.5 months work, ten supervisors at $45,000 each for 5.5months work, five group leaders at $70,000 each for 6 months work, and two project leaders for $125,000 for eight months work.

· WE Charity started to incur eligible expenses on May 5th, despite Cabinet not approving the program until May 22nd. This was being done with the full knowledge of ESDC, and allegedly at the financial liability of WE.

· Trudeau testified that he only found out about WE’s involvement on May 8th, shortly before it was set to be discussed at Cabinet. He claims that he removed it from the agenda and asked the public service to complete additional due diligence given his family connection to WE. He did not contact the Ethics Commissioner despite the concerns. This additional due diligence did not unearth any of the problems disclosed by the former Chair of the Board. It is noteworthy that no Minister, prior to the Prime Minister making his claim, had a story that would corroborate this feeble explanation.

The Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff confirmed that a handful of employees in PMO were aware of WE’s involvement and had interactions with the organization in the lead up to the approval. This included an interaction on May 5th, the day WE started incurring eligible expenses. So far, every time someone has come forward to try and explain away the Liberal’s latest mess, Canadians are left with more questions than when they started. Canadians deserve answers, and my Conservative colleagues and I are committed to finding them using every tool at our disposal.

While the studies at committee may have been temporarily halted by Trudeau’s prorogation Conservatives will continue to investigate this matter, and pursue every whiff of corruption like when we called on the Elections Commissioner to look into the political benefits that the Liberals have been given by WE. While the Prime Minister may be attempting to prevent Canadians from knowing the truth, Members of the Finance committee received thousands of heavily redacted documents from the Liberal government on the same day that Trudeau prorogued Parliament. They paint a very different picture of how WE came to be selected for this program than the one that the Liberals have offered up.

These documents suggest that the Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth told WE to develop a proposal for a summer service opportunity before the CSSG was even announced. They go on to claim that the former Minister of Finance was “besties” with WE and that senior members of the Prime Minister’s office were involved in the development of the program and were having conversations with WE from an early stage. You can see these documents for yourself at wedocuments.ca.

The timeline of Mr. Trudeau’s version of events simply doesn’t add up. The CSSG was announced on April 22nd. A member of PMO spoke with WE about their proposal on May 5th, the same day they started to charge expenses for administering the program, but Cabinet wouldn’t approve the program for two and a half weeks.

Why was a charity that had to recently lay off hundreds of employees due to financial hardship related to COVID-19 so willing to accept the liability of starting the program without approval? Why were they so sure they would be approved? Why were they told they could start charging expenses before approval?

To answer that, you only need to look at the cozy relationship between Justin Trudeau, former Minister of Finance, Bill Morneau, the Liberal Party and WE. Now that the former Minister Bill Morneau has resigned and more than 5000 pages of documents have been released for review, Canadians are hungrier for that truth than ever before. The Liberals are banking on Canadians forgetting about this scandal during their prorogation and hoping that they can change the channel later this month with a new Throne Speech, but it isn’t going to work. Despite prorogation and all of the confusion and misdirection, one thing is absolutely clear – Justin Trudeau must resign for his part in this scandal.

Related Topics:#BlaineCalkins #WeScandal #WETrudeau feature Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Red Deer - Lacombe MP Blaine Calkins WE scandal

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Trump designates fentanyl a ‘weapon of mass destruction’

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Crime

Trump designates fentanyl a ‘weapon of mass destruction’

Published on December 16, 2025

Todayville

From The Center Square

By Sarah Roderick-Fitch

Following an alarming rise in fentanyl deaths in recent years, President Donald Trump is taking another step in cracking down on the deadly drug seeping its way onto American streets by designating it a weapon of mass destruction.

The president signed the executive order Monday during an event in the Oval Office, saying the illicit drug “is closer to a chemical weapon than a narcotic.”

The designation comes on the heels of the administration’s increasing military presence in the Caribbean, targeting narco-terrorists and “successful” meetings with Chinese leaders, who have vowed to crack down on the production of precursors of the drug.

Critics of Trump’s move want to address the fentanyl crisis through a different way. For example, a 2024 bill from attorneys general asking former President Joe Biden to do the same thing expressed concerns about political optics and the language akin to military. Overreach and blurred lines in domestic actions, such as rounding up users.

The order would provide the secretaries of the Department of War and Department of Homeland Security to “update all directives regarding the armed forces’ response to chemical incidents in the homeland to include the threat of illicit fentanyl.”

Trump said the fentanyl drug trade “threatens” national security by fueling “lawlessness” in the Western Hemisphere. This is the area of North America and South America, and the islands near each.

“The production and sale of fentanyl by foreign terrorist organizations and cartels fund these entities’ operations – which include assassinations, terrorist acts, and insurgencies around the world – and allow these entities to erode our domestic security and the well-being of our nation,” the order says in part.

Trump said two cartels are predominantly responsible. The Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, known also as CJNG, are based in Mexico.

The Drug Enforcement Agency said last December that in 2023, more than 107,000 people died from drug overdoses, with nearly 70% attributed to opioids, like fentanyl.

In late February, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention via its National Vital Statistics System predicted a 24% decline in drug overdose deaths for the 12 months ending in September. The finding was based on 87,000 drug overdose deaths from October 2023 to September 2024, down from 114,000 the year prior.

Trump declared opioid overdose a public health emergency in 2017 during his first term.

Sarah Roderick-Fitch

Washington D.C. Bureau Chief

Energy

Energy security matters more than political rhetoric

Published on December 16, 2025

Todayville

From Resource Works

By Stewart Muir

If we force a transition that increases the cost of living, threatens grid reliability, and denies developing nations the dense energy they need to rise out of poverty, what have we actually achieved?

Finance expert warns that political timelines for transition defy the laws of physics and economics while threatening living standards.

In the polarized world of energy policy, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find conversations that prioritize practical reality over political idealism. We are often presented with a binary choice: either you are for the planet, or you are against it. But as I often find when digging deeper into these issues on the Power Struggle podcast, the real world is far too complex for such simple narratives.

I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Jerome Gessaroli to strip away the rhetoric and look at the hard numbers. For those who don’t know him, Gessaroli is a finance professor at the British Columbia Institute of Technology, a senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and a valued member of the Resource Works Advisory Council. He is a thinker who deals in data, not daydreams.

Stewart Muir with Jerome Gesaroli on Power Struggle Podcast

Our conversation focused on a topic that makes many policymakers uncomfortable: the widening gap between our energy transition targets and the physical capacity to meet them.

The Fundamental Equation

We began with a premise that should be obvious but is frequently forgotten in the halls of government in Ottawa or Brussels. Gessaroli laid it out as a fundamental fact that underscores every economic decision a nation makes.

“There is a direct link, a direct correlation, between energy consumption and living standards,” Gessaroli told me. “And so if we expect to improve our living standards in the future, then we will likely be expending more energy.”

This is the inescapable equation of modern life. In the West, where we have enjoyed stable grids and abundant fuel for a century, we sometimes delude ourselves into thinking we can maintain our prosperity while shrinking our energy footprint. But globally, the trend is moving in the opposite direction.

Gessaroli pointed out that while we debate carbon taxes and caps here, the majority of the planet is focused on survival and advancement.

“A lot of the growth in energy consumption will be through the Third World,” he explained. “They’ve just got a huge population, and they want to pursue economic growth, have a better standard of living, and that will require a lot more energy.”

The View from the Developing World

To illustrate this, Gessaroli drew on his observations from India. He described seeing farmers burning dung to create heat and energy—a practice born of necessity, but one that traps populations in poverty and creates localized health hazards. The path out of that poverty isn’t found in wishful thinking; it’s found in density.

“Now, if they expect to have a better standard of living in the future . . . they’re going to be looking at more intensive sources of energy, like coal, natural gas, nuclear, whatever,” Gessaroli said. “They need to use more energy in order to raise their living standards.”

This brings us to one of the most contentious points in the global climate dialogue. We often hear Western politicians ask, with a mix of confusion and frustration, why nations like China and India are still building new coal-power plants. If the technology for wind and solar exists, why aren’t they leaping straight to it?

I found Gessaroli’s answer to be a necessary dose of realism. It isn’t that these nations hate the environment; it’s that they love stability.

“They know how to do it extremely efficiently. They have the local domestic sources,” Gessaroli noted, referring to coal reserves. “There’s a source of energy security in that they don’t have to import the product.”

In an era of geopolitical instability, energy security is national security. Relying on domestic coal provides a safety net that imported fuels or intermittent renewables cannot yet match. As Gessaroli put it: “The type of power that is generated by a coal plant, for instance, is stable, reliable power.”

The Timeline Mismatch

This doesn’t mean the world isn’t changing. It is. Gessaroli was quick to acknowledge that the green energy sector is booming. Innovation is happening. But there is a massive disconnect between the pace of engineering and the pace of political promises.

“There is a lot of growth in terms of other types of energy production. They’re growing quite rapidly and they’re improving over time,” Gessaroli said. “But it’s just not in line with the time frames that our politicians and policymakers are telling us that the targets have to be met by.”

This is the crux of the “power struggle.” We are being sold a vision of the future with a delivery date that defies the laws of physics and economics.

The EV Challenge and the Scale of Site C

Perhaps nowhere is this disconnect more visible than in the push for electric vehicles (EVs). Governments are setting aggressive target dates to ban the sale of internal combustion engines. On paper, it looks like a victory for the climate. But as a finance professor, Gessaroli looks at the balance sheet of power generation.

“What they don’t realize is the activity, the investment, required to actually make that happen,” he said. “Where is all that extra power going to come from?”

This is not a rhetorical question. It is a logistical nightmare. To put it in a local context, we looked at British Columbia. We have just spent years and billions of dollars completing the Site C hydro dam, a massive engineering project designed to secure our grid for the future.

However, Gessaroli’s calculations suggest that the new power demand from a full EV transition alone means we would need two times the amount of power currently generated by the new Site C hydro dam.

Let that sink in. It took us decades of planning, regulatory hurdles, and construction to build one Site C. To meet the government’s EV mandates, we effectively need to build two more, immediately. And that doesn’t even account for the rest of the economy.

“If we want to decarbonize mines and other industrial projects as well, then we’re going to have to find the extra power,” Gessaroli added.

If we cannot build the generation capacity in time, the demand will simply outstrip supply. Prices will skyrocket, and reliability will plummet.

The Unintended Consequences

Towards the end of our discussion, Gessaroli posed a question that has stuck with me. It challenges the moral high ground often claimed by the most aggressive climate activists.

If we force a transition that increases the cost of living, threatens grid reliability, and denies developing nations the dense energy they need to rise out of poverty, what have we actually achieved?

It all leads to his key question: What if the green revolution is hurting the people it aims to protect?

It is a question that deserves an honest answer, not more slogans. As we look toward a future of increased energy demand, we need to listen to experts like Gessaroli who understand that you cannot legislate your way around the laws of thermodynamics.

Watch the video on Power Struggle