社论转载：特鲁多在WE Charity丑闻中表现的无能远比利益冲突可怕

 

 

加拿大国会伦理委员会六月发表的一份关于WE Charity丑闻的调查报告再次对特鲁多政府处理WE Charity的方式进行了抨击。但该报告还得出了一个意想不到的结论：此丑闻长期以来一直被视为利益冲突问题，但丑闻里还有比利益冲突更糟糕的事。

 

A report on the WE Charity fiasco released this month by the House of Commons ethics committee is yet another damning look at the Trudeau government’s handling of the matter, but it leads to an unexpected conclusion: that the conflict of interest scandal long seen as the heart of the affair wasn’t even the worst thing about it. 

 

报告称，未经招标，特鲁多的联邦自由党政府就决定与WE Charity签价值 5.435 亿元的合同。即使WE Charity与特鲁多家族的关系无关，这一做法足以“令人深感不安”。委员会发现，渥太华根本就没有对WE Charity进行合同资格预审。

 

The report says that the government’s decision to sign an untendered contract worth $543.5-million with WE Charity was “deeply troubling” for reasons that had nothing to do with the organization’s relationship with the Trudeau family, and everything to do with the committee’s finding that Ottawa hadn’t done its due diligence with regard to WE. 

 

特鲁多于 2020 年 6 月 25 日宣布，WE Charity将负责管理“加拿大学生服务补助金”（简称CSSG）的派发。这是一项针对新冠疫情的拨款，旨在向那些做义工的青年提供工作机会和报酬。

 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on June 25, 2020, that WE would manage the Canada Student Service Grant, a pandemic-relief program aimed at providing youth with opportunities to do volunteer work, and get paid for it. 

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一周后，这一项目告吹。在指控特鲁多利益冲突的风暴中，WE Charity于 7 月 3 日宣布不去管理CSSG。

 

A week later, the deal collapsed. Amid a storm of conflict-of-interest allegations, WE Charity announced its withdrawal from the CSSG on July 3. 

 

WE Charity是一家搞义务旅行、名人代言人和以音乐会放方式搞青年集会而闻名的慈善组织。利益冲突的指控集中在WE Charity曾向特鲁多的妻子、他的母亲、他的兄弟支付了数十万元的出场费。

 

The allegations focused on the fact that WE, an organization known for voluntourism, celebrity spokespeople and concert-style youth rallies, had paid Mr. Trudeau’s wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, his mother, Margaret Trudeau, and his brother, Alexandre, hundreds of thousands of dollars to speak at its events. 

 

特鲁多本人积极参与该慈善组织的各类活动，尤其是像耶稣复活那样的WE Day大型集会。他自己从未因参与此类活动而拿过钱。

 

Mr. Trudeau himself was an enthusiastic participant in the charity’s events, in particular its revival-like WE Day gatherings, but was never paid to appear. 

 

作为额外的回报，特鲁多的财政部长莫诺于 2017 年与妻子和女儿前往肯尼亚和厄瓜多尔，了解WE Charity在这些国家开展的项目。不知啥原因，莫诺一家的这趟旅行全部由WE Charity买单。

 

As an added bonus, Mr. Trudeau’s finance minister, Bill Morneau, had travelled in 2017 to Kenya and Ecuador with his wife and daughter to learn about WE projects in those countries, and somehow allowed WE to pick up the tab.

 

特鲁多和莫诺都没有回避2020 年 5 月 22 日的内阁会议。在这次会议上，他们定了让WE Charity来实施CSSG 计划。

 

Both Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Morneau failed to recuse themselves from the May 22, 2020, cabinet meeting at which the government chose WE Charity to run the CSSG program. 

 

两人最终都为此道歉。在让WE Charity报销了 2017 年一家的旅行费用的丑闻曝光后，莫诺引咎辞职。

 

They both eventually apologized for doing so. Mr. Morneau also resigned, after reimbursing WE for his 2017 trips.

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今年 5 月，联邦道德专员发现莫诺三次违反联邦道德法律，这全全因为他与 WE Charity 的两位创始人之一的 Craig Kielburger（以及他的兄弟 Marc Kielburger）的私人关系很好。

 

In May of this year, the federal ethics commissioner found Mr. Morneau had broken federal ethics laws three times, largely owing to his personal friendship with Craig Kielburger, one of the two co-founders of WE (along with his brother Marc Kielburger).

 

道德专员认为特鲁多在这一丑闻中没有违反任何规定，但他仍然无法摆脱利益冲突的嫌疑。去年 8 月，他让让国会休会，明目张胆地试图让调查这一丑闻的委员会消声匿迹，结果让此事变得更不可收拾。

 

The ethics commissioner ruled that Mr. Trudeau had not broken any rules. But the conflict of interest allegations still hang over him. And he only made things worse for himself when he prorogued Parliament last August in a naked attempt to silence the committees looking into the WE affair. 

 

显然，特魯多让议会修会而停止对丑闻调查的这一招不管用。道德委员会从今年春天继续调查这一丑闻。调查结论清楚地说明，对特鲁多利益冲突的指控可能分散了对人们对此丑闻中更可怕的事情的注意力：特魯多的极端无能。

 

It didn’t work, of course. The ethics committee picked up this spring where it left off, and its main conclusion suggests the conflict of interest allegations may have been a distraction from something worse: rampant incompetence. 

 

报告发现，特鲁多从未要求看看都有哪些证据证明渥太华自己没有能力实施 CSSG 计划，而非要外包给WE Charity一家。

 

The report found that Mr. Trudeau never asked for documented support of the claims that the public service wouldn’t be able to run the CSSG program, and that WE was the best choice. 

 

在那些负责设立此计划的人根本没有认真研究把这一计划全部交给WE Charity运作是否有问题情况下，特魯多就拍板了。

 

It was simply more convenient to accept what turned out to be spectacularly poor due diligence on the part of those charged with setting up the program. 

 

道德委员会说，他们“无法找到任何WE Charity可信，能执行这一巨大项目的支持文件。WE Charity从来没有经手过类似CSSG规模的大项目……”

 

The ethics committee said it “was unable to find any due diligence reports that actually tested the credibility of the claims made by the WE Charity. This group had never undertaken a project close to this magnitude…” 

 

该委员会还发现，联邦政府的重要官员并不知道 5.435 亿元的合同不是与WE Charity签订的，而是与WE Charity Foundation签订的。WE Charity Foundation一家没有资产的空壳公司。

 

The committee also discovered that key members of the government were unaware that the $543.5-million contract wasn’t signed with WE Charity, but with the WE Charity Foundation, a related shell company that had no assets. 

 

经过 10 个月的调查，委员会仍然无法搞清WE Charity的财务系统。WE Charity既有慈善部门，也有营利部门。报告称：“我们搞不清楚WE Charity资金如何在慈善部门与其营利性业务之间周转。”

 

And it found that, after 10 months of study, it was still unable to get a clear picture of the financial structure of the charity, which had both charitable and for-profit arms. “We were unable to ascertain a clear division between how monies flowed through the charitable wing and their for-profit operations,” the report said. 

 

虽然这些都不能证明WE Charity没有能力建起一个系统来执行 CSSG 计划，但这一丑闻显示，为了用钱拉拢年轻人（未来的选民），提高自己的知名度，在不知道支配钱的组织究竟是谁，也不考虑钱将怎么花的情况下就将钱撒出去的特魯多和他治下的联邦自由党政府是多么无能。

 

None of this proves that WE Charity could never have successfully set up and run the CSSG program. But it’s a frank condemnation of the Trudeau government’s incompetent rush to buy popularity by showering pandemic dollars on a valuable demographic (ah, youth!), without really understanding or caring where the money was going.

 

这种无能比利益冲突更可怕。

 

And that’s an even more serious charge than conflict of interest.

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编注：以上是加拿大全国发行的最大日报——《环球邮报》发表的社论。大中报编译。

Note: The Editorial was published by The Globe and Mail. Translated by Chinese News.