Finance Minister Bill Morneau did not recuse himself from the Liberal cabinet’s consideration of a $19.5 million contract for WE Charity, despite the involvement of two of his immediate family members in the charity — one of them as a paid contract employee.
Finance Minister Bill Morneau did not recuse himself from the Liberal cabinet’s consideration of a $19.5 million contract for WE Charity, despite the involvement of two of his immediate family members in the charity — one of them as a paid contract employee.
Grace Acan, who was born in Uganda but joined Morneau’s family as a teenager in 2010 when she was sponsored to come to Canada, has been a paid employee of the charity’s travel department since 2019.
The website Canadaland reported on Morneau’s familial ties to the WE Charity on Friday morning.
The minister’s office says Acan’s role is strictly administrative and her term contract ends on August 31. She joined the WE organization as an employee after working there previously as an intern during her undergraduate studies in community development.
“Like millions of Canadians, Grace Acan has been gaining valuable work experience in the charitable sector,” Morneau’s spokesperson, Pierre-Olivier Herbert, told CBC News earlier this week, in response to a question about whether her employment had anything to do with the charity’s contract to administer the $900 million Canada Student Service Grant.
“There is absolutely no link between her employment and any work that WE does with the