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Good afternoon. My name is Sofia Marquez. Thank you so much for the opportunity to provide some opening remarks before addressing your questions.
As members of the committee know, I am appearing before you today after being issued a summons on Monday, February 22. Before the summons was issued, I respectfully declined two invitations by written correspondence through counsel.
My refusal may have left the committee members or other Canadians with the impression that I am a reluctant witness or that I represent WE Charity in an attempt to refuse the committee's questions about the organization's activities. Let me correct that misconception at this time. I'm happily appearing before you as a private citizen to answer your questions honestly and to the best of my ability. I'm very proud of the way I've conducted myself throughout my professional career and I have nothing to hide.
I would like to share for the record some background about my role at WE Charity and the limitations on my ability to assist this committee in its study.
Prior to working for WE Charity, I obtained a master's in public and international affairs in 2014 from the University of Ottawa. After graduation, I worked in policy analysis, project management, and proposal development roles in both the non-profit and private sectors. I have never been a consultant lobbyist or worked in a role in which lobbying formed the core of my responsibilities within an organization.
I began my employment with WE Charity in July 2017 as an associate director of strategy. In this role, I managed a team that supported the efforts of other departments and the executives in the development of specialized proposals across all sectors. This included the private, public and non-profit sectors.
I wasn't initially hired to be a liaison for government or other stakeholders. In July of 2018, WE Charity recognized that my work had gradually and naturally evolved to focus more on external engagement, and I took on the newly created title of director of government and stakeholder relations, along with a shift in my duties. In this role, I was responsible for engagement with all levels of government, as well as with strategic stakeholders across the non-profit sector and private sector in relation to domestic programs run by WE Charity in Canada. This included securing funding, project management to support the successful implementation of funded programs, and fulfilling reporting requirements on existing initiatives.
All of this work was focused on helping to advance opportunities for Canadian youth to engage in service and education, a goal I cared passionately about then and still do today.
The scope of my responsibilities did not include, however, the stewardship of donations or the management of specific donor relationships, the securing and management of talent for WE Day or ancillary events around it, or any involvement in WE Charity's international projects. I also don't have information on WE Charity's corporate or financial operational structure.
To be clear, if you're imagining me as a full-time in-house lobbyist, that would be a mischaracterization of my role. I wore many hats, and lobbying was occasionally one of them. My government engagement at all levels included all kinds of activities and communications, including overseeing project management, reporting on existing government-funded programs, or even understanding—broadly speaking—youth policies that were in place. I was not by any stretch a full-time lobbyist or even a regular lobbyist for the federal government.
I am aware of the Lobbying Act and code and I was aware of them while working for WE Charity. As members of the committee will know, the responsibility for registration for in-house lobbyists under the Lobbying Act lies with the executive director of an organization. However, in support of WE Charity's response to the lobbying commissioner's inquiries and other requests from the federal government, I provided all my calendar and records to my former employer to facilitate an estimate of my actual time spent engaging with the federal government in any capacity.
I am aware that WE Charity has completed a registration under the act, dated back to January 2019, which includes my name as an in-house lobbyist during my employment with the organization. I was not involved in that process, which took place after my departure from WE Charity, and I cannot offer the committee any information about it.
I can, of course, tell you what I remember about my role in developing the proposal of the Canada student service grant in April and May 2020, as I already did for the finance committee back in August. I can only do this from memory, since my records belong to my former employer.
I can tell you that before the Canada student service grant was conceived, WE Charity made an unsolicited proposal to government for a student entrepreneurship program, which we hoped would be a way to support Canadian youth during and after the first wave of the pandemic. This proposal was shared with and in the first half of April 2020. This proposal was in no way related to what eventually would become the Canada student service grant, and focused on a different type of youth engagement, from a scale perspective and a model perspective.
I can also tell you that I was aware that Rachel Wernick contacted Craig Kielburger and identified the government's interest in developing a student service program on a much wider scale on April 19. In response to that information, I was deeply engaged, and dedicated most of my time to mobilizing my colleagues at WE Charity to draft a proposal to ESDC, which was ultimately provided to government as a formal proposal on April 22.
The service proposal was shared widely within government after April 22, as I understand it, though I would have no knowledge of internal communications within government. To confirm, I did participate in a briefing call with Craig Kielburger, Michelle Kovacevic and Rachel Wernick on April 24 as well, as the record has shown.
After this point, I received and responded to many requests from ESDC for further information between May 8 and May 22 as part of the proposal development process. As of May 22, however, I was no longer involved in any activity regarding the Canada student service grant. All responsibility for dealing with the proposal or agreement negotiations were led by the executive level within WE Charity, and I had no further involvement in or knowledge of engagement with government at that point.
My role as director of government and stakeholder relations at WE Charity ended on July 31 of last year, as you all know, and I have moved on in my own career from that work. I remain committed to promoting youth education and engagement in Canada, and I'm very proud of our team's hard work to advance these issues at WE Charity, particularly during a pandemic. It has been truly disappointing for me to watch those efforts being undermined and ultimately undone over the past several months.
I welcome the opportunity to answer any questions the committee may have for me at this time.
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I'm here today to speak for and on behalf of this little guy right here. This is Wesley Cowan.
When I talk today, I hope you will receive what I say as the words of a dad who's here to speak on behalf of his son. I am the proud father of Wesley Cowan, the little boy whose April 23, 2006, fall from a swing set claimed his life and thrust those of us who love him into a years-long effort to turn pain into purpose by building schools in Kenya on the assurances of Dalal Al-Waheidi, Craig Kielburger, Marc Kielburger and Roxanne Kielburger that those schools that we built, that we engaged donors to help us build, would be named after him, would have his name on them on a plaque on each school, to give Wesley a legacy and to serve the children in Kenya.
I know that all of you got up this morning and you likely prepared for this hearing by going through routines and procedure. I want to assert to you that routines and procedure are really never a good way to understand what I hope to convey in this hearing, which is this: That, to me, learning that WE Charity and Free The Children are embroiled in a scandal and that assurances made to donors are now in question feels like returning to my son's grave to find it broken open, defiled and empty. It feels like the place that you thought was safe and secure for the body of your child has somehow been made unsafe and not secure. Standing there, you don't know exactly how it happened. You don't know exactly who did it, but you know something is not right. That sense of safety, security and solace is damaged, and the damage is done. That's how if feels to be here today.
I want to let you know, with respect to your process, that I really did not want to be here for this hearing this morning, but from my perspective, when members of Parliament request your truth, you have to oblige. I also right off the top want to say in fairness to Craig Kielburger and Robin Wiszowaty and board member David Stillman with Free The Children and WE Charity that they indeed have blown up my phone, emails, text messages, voice mails and phone calls after I gave Craig hell over what the Bloomberg article claimed about Free The Children and WE Charity, with staff telling reporters that there were often jokes that plaques should be made of Velcro because they were so often swapped out, once the donors had left, from schools that donors thought they had built.
I also want to say and acknowledge here, because I know the media are watching, that I've had a lot of media inquiries, and for very good reasons I've held back going on the record about this situation. I'm a member of the press myself. I don't want to do this. I don't like the amount of press that could likely come about for a U.S. donor who is connected, as I am, to a presumption of millions of dollars raised, all tied back to my son and our efforts, and I have not wanted to participate in the process of selling papers or helping bloggers get web clicks for outlets or boosting ratings on the back of my beautiful son.
I want to be clear about something: Wesley's name, Wesley's face, Wesley's life of four years and his legacy were used to make money for Free the Children and WE Charity, and somehow letting media outlets make money using the same has been painful and just too much.
Before I answer your questions, I ask each of you that I can see on this screen and those that I can't to search your souls in this moment, because frankly, I don't know who the bad guys are. If there are any of you in this meeting who are seeking to use Wesley's face or name or life or legacy as a political card to play in something other than finding truth on behalf of donors, I ask, with respect, that you call off my portion of the hearing now.
That said, to frame your understanding briefly, I formed the Wesley Smiles Coalition fundraiser in the days after we left Wesley inside his mausoleum. Our group—we—paid Free The Children and WE Charity out of our own pockets, none of us with a great deal of money, to travel to Kenya three times. We were given unlimited access to Kenyan operations and staff for interviews, using documentary crews that I hired and paid for.
In Salt Lake City, I believe in 2006, our efforts raised just short of $100,000. In Florida, when I partnered with one of the largest school districts in the United States of America, our fundraising brought in more than $100,000, as I believe and have been told.
I'm also aware that over the years large cheques have come in to Free the Children and to WE Charity via my speaking around the United States and people who saw my TED Talk. All in, I believe I am connected to what I presume are millions of dollars raised. In fact, as WE Charity board member or Free the Children board member David Stillman told me on a phone call recently, quote, “Because you did this for your son, Reed, people saw that. That got groups like welders, like Walgreens, like Unilever, like Allstate, to join. So many people went over who told us, wow, if one guy did this for his son, what can we do for our company, and they adopted villages because of you.”
I want you to know something, because I believe in seeing facts on paper, and I've tried to get some of the facts on paper: I've repeatedly asked for an accounting of all monies raised connected to Wesley Cowan's legacy, and as of this date I have not been provided that accounting. I'd like it. I've repeatedly asked for an accounting of how much money our group and our groups paid to Free the Children and WE to travel to Kenya to stay in their facilities and be on their program, and so far I have not been provided with that accounting.
As a result of the scandal, and to my great mortification, I have had to contact members of the Broward school district in Florida and those who led our Salt Lake City, Utah, efforts to tell them about the reports, about my discovery, and they're horrible phone calls to have to make.
Now, also, to the bloggers and tweeters who are out there watching right now, I saw your tweets this morning. I want you to know something clearly: I'm not in a campaign against the Kielburgers or their organization. I do not wish them harm. I do not wish their families harm. I do not wish to harm any of the good work that may have been done. Very clearly, I am not, as board member David Stillman said to me on a well-transcribed phone call, out to harm the legacy of his late brother Howie, whose name is on some of the schools in Kenya. What I am doing is speaking for a child who cannot speak for himself. I'm here as Wesley Cowan's father to guard his legacy, and I want to know why his legacy feels robbed.
Finally, before I take your questions—and I know eyeballs are on this—I have a request for the rich, the powerful and well connected, the celebrity and the corporate set who lent their power to the elevation of Free the Children and WE Charity: I'm asking that you come out of hiding on this matter and go on the record, as I have had to do today.
Come out to vouch for Free the Children and WE Charity and Marc and Craig Kielburger. Come out to open all of your records and communications with them, and let people like me and other donors know that you believe Free the Children and WE Charity are indeed on the up and up. Prove it. Prove it with your brand and your big names. Let kids in Canada and kids in the United States know it, and be done with this.
With respect, that means you, Prime Minister , and your family. That means every corporation that engaged with Free the Children—Walgreens and others. That means Oprah Winfrey and the members of the Oprah's Angel Network and affiliates. That means pop star Demi Lovato and Nelly Furtado and Madonna, who sent her daughter Lourdes. That means Prince Harry. That means the Dalai Lama. That means Mia Farrow. That means Nate Berkus. That means Malala and any other big name whose profile, credibility and power brought Free the Children and the WE charities to being that mega-million-dollar powerhouse on the backs of children and on the back of my late son.
I'm asking all of you whom I have named and anybody out there who might fall in those categories to do it within seven days, because hear me now: None of you have lost anything. I lost a child, and here I am in front of a camera not wanting to be here. By stepping forward and telling the world that you vouch for Craig and Marc, WE Charity and Free the Children, you've lost nothing, and this is an opportunity now, when the spotlight is on this issue, for anyone who is involved with them to use their truth, their light and their power for advocacy, if there is any to be had. If you don't, your silence says everything, and people like me and my donors and legacies like Wesley Cowan's, Howie Stillman's and countless others are hanging in the balance—people like me, who stand feeling like the graves of their children have been robbed.
I appreciate you hearing me and I am ready to take your questions.
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That was the starting point to doing a lot of investigation on my part.
Forgive me....
Of all that I read in the Bloomberg article, that was the most important touchpoint for me to investigate. I received, not long after the article, photos that were taken, I presume within recent months, of every door on every school at every campus in Kenya. I noticed that the door to the school building we had opened on the one-year anniversary of Wesley's tragedy....
We had made a goal. We had said that on the one-year anniversary of what happened to Wesley—I still can't say the D word—we'll be in Kenya and we'll be opening a school.
After I read the Bloomberg article and acquired photos of every door of every school of every campus in Kenya, I saw that the school we had opened and put our plaque on, with Wesley's name and his motto, “Be Happy Every Day”, which I wear on a bracelet—we gave away thousands of these bracelets—was no longer on his school. Instead, it had the name Esther Grodnik, and then, in a smaller font, the Howie Stillman Foundation.
I thought, “Who's Esther Grodnik and who's the Howie Stillman Foundation?” I went to the foundation's website. I don't know if their videos are still up, but I followed the link to videos. I saw a video—I have it, but it may have been taken down now—and there was a time-stamp for an opening celebration where they opened the very same building less than two weeks before we arrived there. We went to Kenya thinking we were opening that building for Wesley, but their video, with the time-stamp on it....
I've matched it. I've matched it frame for frame, because I have extensive documentary footage. It shows, or suggests damningly, that what the Stillmans celebrated in their video was the same one that I think 13 days later we opened. The ceremony was re-cued for us with the same people, same songs and same everything, but with different plaques.
It's pretty devastating. As I told Craig Kielburger....
You know, you mentioned 15 years, but I have PTSD. I still walk these floors at night. On the hardest nights, I close my eyes and go back to Enelerai campus and the school building we opened, believing that was Wesley's campus, and that the sun was coming up in Kenya and kids were in his desks. That got me through lots of nights, so you can imagine that when I saw the time-stamp on the Howie Stillman Foundation's building that bore the name of Esther Grodnik on the building that we thought our plaque was on, it raised a lot of questions and felt pretty damned devastating.
Thank you, Mr. Cowan, for coming forward. Again, I think all of us are pretty shaken up, especially for you as a father, as someone who wants young people to believe and to make change, given the incredible energy that you tapped into. We have to honour that. I thank you for your testimony.
I also recognize that you are an Emmy Award-winning journalist, so you're probably not used to having to answer questions. You're probably more comfortable asking the questions, but you'll have to bear with us for a minute.
I want to go to Mr. Kielburger's response to you that this was a mistake. It is possible that a mistake was made, that in their excitement about getting more funds they forgot to contact you. What does concern me is what we saw in the Bloomberg article, in which they talked about having Velcro on plaques and how this was a tactic and how staff seemed to think it was kind of funny. That was shocking. Then we had The Fifth Estate documentary that said this was being done with the water wells, the same kind of tactic of having multiple donors pay for the same waterhole.
We've had staff at WE tell us stuff was going on in the schools, but you have confirmed it. This looks to me like a pattern, a pattern of duplicitous relations with donors. When you see this pattern laid out, how do you feel that this organization can carry on doing this kind of work?
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I think David Stillman, board member Stillman, left the conversation feeling as though we had left amicably, but I felt that the conversation was like engaging with a dog barking at the mouth of a dark cave. I couldn't get a word in edgewise, and that dog didn't want me to go into the cave and turn on the lights.
I left disturbed, because I felt that what was said on the phone call and in the well-documented exchange was directly contradicted by an email that followed the next day.
Just to characterize why I felt that I was talking to somebody who I didn't feel I trusted, he said to me—and he's on their board, and I will take out the full use of the profanity—“Would I ever work again with Craig Kielburger? Eff, no. Would I ever want to work with Marc Kielburger again? Eff, no. But I'm here to protect my brother's legacy and to protect the work in Kenya, and that's what I'm doing.”
The next day I followed up with an email, saying that it was my understanding from our conversation that there was no love lost between him and the Kielburger brothers, so if his goal, in his role as a board member, was to protect the legacy of his brother and protect the work in Kenya, as he said, he could put me on the board. He could put me on the board and let me have a say, because I'm invested. He replied—and I'm paraphrasing here—that oh no, he loved Craig and Marc; and he didn't seem really excited about the idea of my being a decision-maker on the board.
When somebody says something one day and the next day contradicts it directly, trust is lost.
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Good afternoon, everyone.
Welcome, Reed, this Friday afternoon. Thank you for availing yourself and joining us.
I don't really consider myself to be philosophical in any sense. I'm just a grunt, just a grit. There was a former ice hockey player named John Tonelli who was on the New York Islanders. He was just one of those grinders. That was his success: You work hard, you play by the rules, you get some balls that bounce your way, you do what you do in life, and you just be good. I believe in karma and so forth. Just make your way in this world, do what you can and contribute at all levels. I view life as being one long continuum. You never know where it's going to go, not with breaks but with a continuum. We each have a chosen path.
Your path, from what I've read today, has been very interesting, and obviously heartbreaking to a certain extent, absolutely. I'm a parent of two young daughters, so I can only imagine. My heartfelt condolences go to you and your family for what you've gone through.
I'm also here to learn, and to learn about a witness like you who comes to this committee. You got into charity, or helping kids, because you wanted to do this. This meant a lot to you. Where are you today? Where were you when you were doing these initiatives? Where do you want to go forward in helping kids? Excuse me for making it so broad, but listening to the testimony, I have a lot of questions.
I'd like to turn the floor over to you now, Reed. Thank you for coming.
I would like to talk to those who trusted me on behalf of the Wesley Smiles Coalition. I'll speak to those donors.
For all of the kids, I would say to them that they have every right to seek answers, transparency and accountability of Free the Children and the WE charities. They have every right to do that, to ask for documentation, as I have done, to ask for an accounting. I would say that in the absence of that, remember that the spirit of Kenya can be shared in our own communities in the absence of answers, in the absence of transparency.
To those who donated because they trusted me and they saw my son's picture, I will tell them that I'm also here for them today, because I hope that your process gets all of the answers. I hope to engage those who are in power, who are way more powerful than I am, who are way more—quote, unquote—important in the world than I am, so that they'll come forward and end this once and for all.
Just come forward. Let's see everything. Let's see all the documents. Let's see everything so that people can go back to trusting and get to work, because in Kenya the need is great. Especially during and post the pandemic, the need is going to be even greater.
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Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Cowan, if my voice is shaking a little bit it's because I really am struggling a little bit on what to say. I've been a member of Parliament for 17 years, and I don't think I've been moved more by somebody's opening of their heart to a committee before. All I can say is that I feel an extreme sadness for what has happened to you. I want to thank you for your courage and leadership. I'm a new member to this committee, and what you've done today for me, and I want you to know this, is to really explain the importance of the work that we're doing here, following up on and making sure that the legacy of your son Wesley is properly looked after.
What saddens me most is the effect that someone like you being a victim of fraud has on good people, because with the goodness that you wanted to put out into the world, you were able to bring in other people who wanted to do good, who wanted to spend their time and make a difference, and we need more good people in the world. We need more good people to do things and take action, and so I want to thank you for that.
I don't have a lot of questions, but I was wondering—because I'm really starting to feel the effect that this horrible situation is going to have not only on you but also on a lot of other people who have been connected to this charity—if you could you explain to people watching today why it is so important that we do a good job.
You said earlier that you don't know who the bad guys are. We don't know who all the bad guys are either. We're starting to see a picture and a pattern being formed here. Why is it so important that we do find the bad guys in order to restore trust? We need more transparency and trust in the system, as you were saying, because, into the future, we need more of the good work that you have shown you can do.