Raising concerns about the timeline that preceded a quarter-of-a-million-dollar partnership between WE Charity and the Ministry of Education, the Saskatchewan NDP is calling on Premier Moe to proactively release his correspondence with the Conflict of Interest Commissioner regarding his recent trip to Kenya with the organization’s founder, Craig Kielburger. The Premier met with Mr. Kielburger on two separate occasions last fall, and the Premier indicated yesterday that a contract with his organization was already under consideration at that time.
“The Premier said yesterday that he’d discussed a possible WE contract with the Minister of Education as early as last summer or fall, but maintains that there was no conflict of interest in his Kielburger visit to Kenya because it was cleared by the conflict of interest commissioner,” said NDP Education Critic Carla Beck. “Did the Premier inform the Commissioner that he and the Education Minister had discussed a programming partnership with the charity that Moe was travelling with? If there’s nothing to hide this should be simple: the Premier should proactively release his communication with the Commissioner on this issue.”
Beck is specifically calling on the Premier to release all documents sent to the Conflict of Interest commissioner, the Commissioner’s response, and any further communication that may have occurred regarding the matter.
“We know that the Premier and his family have been involved with the WE foundation for many years — there’s no problem with that in and of itself,” said Beck. “But when the Premier is taking it upon himself to champion public schools spending a quarter-of-a-million dollars on a pilot project with that organization, every step of that process deserves scrutiny. The Premier should do the right thing and proactively disclose his communications around this potential conflict of interest.”
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