With the WE Charity saga unfolding, there are going to tens of thousands of youth and young people who feel betrayed by WE, by politicians, and other leaders. We will probably need a charity just to pick up the pieces. It may take months or years to see the full impact of this scandal.

I always feared that if WE imploded that lots of people who really believed what they were doing was excellent international development work will become disillusioned and move away from being what they thought were ‘global citizens.’

Many donors, funders, and sponsors did not know what is known today and what will be learned in the future. Some will be very upset, and some will feel betrayed. A lot of people were taken in by WE.

Some groups (funders, government departments, school boards) will need to spend some time doing a review of what has happened and how can they do better due diligence and prevent scenarios like this from happening again. 

We need comprehensive whistleblower legislation at the Federal and Provincial levels to make problems like these less likely. We need greater transparency in the charity sector to make it easier for donors, regulators (and even board members!) to know what is going on, as I have set out in this brief to the Finance Committee.  The charity sector needs greater understanding of the basic legal requirements of running a charity, as quite clearly many charities, politicians and members of the public are clueless.  In the meantime, the sooner the government and WE Charity come clean about a lot of issues, the sooner everyone can move on to the other important issues facing Canada.

There are many great international development organizations in Canada. My suggestion is, instead of fixating on WE and your experience with WE, move to working with another international development organization that is simpler to understand and that is more transparent and accountable.

Mark Blumberg is a lawyer at Blumberg Segal LLP in Toronto, Ontario. He can be contacted at mark@blumbergs.ca To find out more about legal services that Blumbergs provides to Canadian charities and non-profits please visit www.CanadianCharityLaw.ca, www.SmartGiving.ca, or www.CharityData.ca

This article is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be legal advice. You should not act or abstain from acting based upon such information without first consulting a legal professional.

This article has been updated to include a missing link under the "brief to the Finance Committee."

Cover image by Andrea Piacquadio via Pexels