LILLEY: WE loses sponsors, supporters
Article content
The number of companies and organizations pulling away from WE continues to grow. Corporate sponsors of the charity and its various affiliates have been announcing their divorce of sorts over the past few days, now schools are on the chopping block.
As my colleague Lorne Gunter first reported, Alberta’s education minister Adriana LaGrange pulled out a three-year contract with WE that would have seen the province pay the group $750,000 over three years.
Recommended Videos
tap here to see other videos from our team.
LILLEY: WE loses sponsors, supporters Back to video
tap here to see other videos from our team.
Ontario’s Ministry of Education currently has a $250,000 contract with WE to provide mental health training and supports for students.
The Ford government isn’t dropping WE yet, but an official did say the contract — announced last fall — only runs for a year and like all contracts will be reviewed.
tap here to see other videos from our team.
Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Education recently signed a $260,000 contract with WE, also for mental health services for students.
While some governments are staying with them for now, several corporate sponsors have dropped the embattled charity — Telus, KPMG and the Globe and Mail have all said they are no longer working with WE.
Loblaw has not renewed their partnership, and Royal Bank is reviewing their role.
tap here to see other videos from our team.
Who is WE?
Knowing who you are speaking with or about can be difficult when talking about WE.
WE Charity is the group that most people think of when discussing the group but as we learned this week there are many more names and groups.
There is the WE Charity Foundation, ME to WE which is the private business owned by Craig and Marc Kielburger, ME to WE Foundation, and of course their American operations using the same names.
These are all legally separate entities but all work together, have the same address and phone number, often have the same people working for them and share similar goals.
They even use very similar branding.
There is also a long list of companies the Kielburger brothers have set up surrounding the charity they founded 25 years ago.
Here is a partial list:
ME to WE
ME to WE Asset Holdings Inc.
ME to WE Trips Inc.
ME to WE Style Inc.
ME to WE Shop Inc.
WE Education Inc.
Global Impact Fund Inc.
Kiel Projects Inc.
Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.