title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: Mike "Iron Mike" Donahue was Auburn's first head men's basketball coach, starting the program in 1906. He coached the program for 16 seasons, the longest tenure of any men's basketball coach in Auburn history, finishing with a record of 74–80–1 (.481). In addition to coaching basketball, Donahue served as athletic director and coached the football, baseball, track, and soccer teams while at Auburn.


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: Though perhaps more famous for his career as a football coach at Auburn, Ralph "Shug" Jordan coached the Auburn men's basketball program for 10 seasons prior to becoming the head football coach. Jordan was a football assistant coach when he coached the men's basketball program.


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: After playing football and basketball for Auburn from 1929 to 1932, Jordan became the head men's basketball coach in 1933. He coached until 1942, when he was called overseas to fight as an officer in World War II. Following his service, Jordan returned to Auburn to coach the 1945–46 team. He left Auburn to become the head men's basketball coach at Georgia after the season. Jordan finished with a record of 95–77 (.552) at Auburn.


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: Joel Eaves was Auburn's 12th head men's basketball coach, coaching from 1949 to 1963. Eaves was a former Auburn football and basketball player, playing from 1934 to 1937 under head coach "Shug" Jordan.


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: Auburn won its first ever SEC championship under Eaves in 1960, finishing 12–2 in the conference and 19–3 overall. Eaves was named SEC Coach of the Year following the 1960 season. Eaves finished with a 213–100 (.681) record at Auburn, making him the winningest men's basketball coach in Auburn history.


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: Joel Eaves was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 1978. Auburn's Memorial Coliseum was renamed after Eaves to Joel H. Eaves Memorial Coliseum in 1987, and later to Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum in 1993.


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: Sonny Smith was the 15th head men's basketball coach at Auburn, coaching for 11 seasons from 1978 to 1989.


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: Smith coached Auburn to the NCAA tournament in 5 consecutive seasons, 1984 to 1988, including a run to the Elite Eight in 1986 before losing to eventual national champion Louisville. In addition to leading Auburn to its first ever NCAA tournament in 1984, he also coached Auburn to its first SEC tournament championship in 1985. Smith is the only head men's basketball coach in Auburn history to coach three consecutive 20-win seasons, doing so from 1984 to 1986. Sonny Smith was named SEC Coach of the Year in 1984 and 1988.


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: Smith coached his final season at Auburn in 1989, leaving to become the head men's basketball coach at VCU. Smith finished with a record of 173–154 (.529). Smith was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 2007.


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: Cliff Ellis was the 17th head men's basketball coach at Auburn. He coached for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004.


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: Ellis had some success early in his career, leading Auburn to the NIT three times in his first four seasons and being named SEC Coach of the Year in 1995. His most successful season at Auburn was the 1998–99 season, where he led the Tigers to an SEC regular season championship and the program's first ever #1 seed in the NCAA tournament, in which they reached the Sweet Sixteen. Ellis was named both SEC and National Coach of the Year in 1999. Ellis would take Auburn to the NCAA tournament two more times: reaching the Second Round in 2000 and returning to the Sweet Sixteen in 2003.


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: Ellis was released following the 2003–04 season after finishing the season with a 14–14 record. Auburn faced NCAA sanctions over alleged recruiting violations during the season, but Ellis was not found at fault after the investigation. Ellis finished with a record of 186–125 (.598) at Auburn, trailing only Eaves on the school's all-time wins list.


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: Bruce Pearl became Auburn's 20th head men's basketball coach on March 18, 2014. He led Auburn to its third SEC regular season championship in the 2017–18 season and its second SEC tournament championship in 2019, en route to leading Auburn to its first ever Final Four in the 2019 NCAA tournament. Following another regular season championship in the 2021–22 season, Pearl was selected as SEC Coach of the Year. Pearl's current record at Auburn is .


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: Auburn has produced 35 NBA draft picks, including 10 first round picks. The most players selected from Auburn in a single draft was 3 in the 1988 draft. Jabari Smith holds the record for the highest draft pick from Auburn, selected 3rd overall in the 2022 draft.


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: In addition to its 30 NBA draft picks, Auburn has produced several undrafted free agents that went on to have NBA careers.


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: Auburn has won five regular season conference championships in its history: one Southern Conference championship in 1928 and four Southeastern Conference championships in 1960, 1999, 2018, and 2022. Auburn also won the SEC West Division championship in 1999.


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: Auburn has won the SEC tournament twice: in 1985 under coach Sonny Smith and again in 2019 under Bruce Pearl. The 1985 Auburn Tigers won the tournament after beating Alabama 53–49 in overtime. That 1985 Auburn team was the first ever to win four games in four days to win the SEC Tournament.


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: In 2019, the Tigers earned a bye in the Tournament during the regular season and won games against Missouri, South Carolina, and Florida before crushing Tennessee in the final game 84–64. Auburn has reached the SEC Tournament final two other times: in 1984, where they lost to Kentucky 51–49, and in 2000, where they lost to Arkansas 75–67. Auburn has had three SEC Tournament MVPs: Charles Barkley in 1984, Chuck Person in 1985, and Bryce Brown in 2019.


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: Auburn has appeared in the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) 6 times. Their combined record is 4–6.


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: Auburn's first on-campus basketball facility was Alumni Gymasium, which opened in February 1916. Auburn played its home games in Alumni Gymnasium until Auburn Sports Arena was opened in 1946.


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: Auburn Sports Arena was a 2,500 seat multi-purpose arena. Nicknamed "The Barn," it opened in 1946. It was replaced when Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum opened in 1969. Auburn Sports Arena stood until September 21, 1996, when it caught fire and burned down in the middle of a football game between Auburn and LSU.


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: Beard–Eaves–Memorial Coliseum is a 10,500-seat multipurpose arena that opened in 1969 under the name Memorial Coliseum. It was renamed after former player and coach Joel Eaves to Joel H. Eaves Memorial Coliseum in 1987. It was renamed for the final time to Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum in 1993, adding the name of former Auburn athletic director Jeff Beard.


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: Auburn boasted a 393–182 (.683) overall record at Beard–Eaves–Memorial Coliseum. Auburn had a winning record at home in 37 of the 42 seasons Auburn played in the Coliseum. Auburn's 30-game home winning streak from the 1997–98 season to the final game of the 1999–2000 season was the longest in Coliseum history. It was the nation's second longest current winning streak at the time and is the second longest home winning streak in Auburn history.


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: Auburn played its final season in Beard–Eaves–Memorial Coliseum in the 2009–10 season. Auburn's final game in Beard–Eaves–Memorial Coliseum was on March 3, 2010; Auburn beat Mississippi State 89–80.


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: On June 29, 2007, Auburn announced plans to build a new $92.5 million basketball arena and practice facilities that would eventually be completed for the 2010–11 season. The arena was initially named Auburn Arena, but later renamed to Neville Arena in 2022. With a seating capacity of 9,121, Neville Arena is the smallest men's basketball arena in the SEC. Aside from the main court, the arena also contains two practice courts, a weight room, 12 suites, coaches offices, the Auburn Ticket Office, and the Lovelace Athletic Museum.


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: Auburn played its first game in Auburn Arena on November 12, 2010, losing to UNC Asheville in overtime 70–69. Auburn's first win in Auburn Arena came on November 21, 2010, when Auburn beat Middle Tennessee 68–66. Auburn currently holds a record in Neville Arena.


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: Sometimes referred to as the "Iron Bowl of Basketball," Auburn and Alabama have a fierce rivalry that dates back to 1924. Auburn and Alabama first met in the Southern Conference Tournament on March 1, 1924, and Auburn lost 19–40. The two programs did not meet again until 1941 in the SEC tournament, a matchup that Auburn lost again 16–38. The programs have played regularly since 1948, meeting at least twice every season starting in 1949. Auburn's first win in the rivalry came in their sixth meeting on December 20, 1949, when Auburn beat Alabama 45–40.


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: Auburn and Alabama have met in the SEC Tournament 9 times, including Auburn's 53–49 overtime victory over Alabama in the 1985 SEC Tournament championship game. Alabama leads the all-time series 99–67.


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: Georgia is Auburn's oldest rival, first meeting in 1908 in Columbus, GA. Auburn won that game 34–20. Auburn and Georgia have played at least once every year since 1945. Auburn leads the all-time series 99–96.


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: Though Auburn and UAB have met just 21 times, the two programs have a strong history. The first game between the two schools was played on November 26, 1982, a matchup won by Auburn, 63–61. The programs met 16 more times over the next two decades until the series was discontinued after the 1999–2000 season. In 2015, Auburn and UAB agreed to a four-game series that reignited the rivalry. Auburn leads the all-time series 11–10.


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: Auburn's student section is known as The Jungle. Auburn held a vote to name their student section at the start of the 2011–12 season, and The Jungle was chosen from several options. Auburn officially started The Jungle on January 11, 2012 for the Auburn–Kentucky game. The Jungle was awarded the Sixth Man Award at the 2012 team banquet for its "outstanding support throughout the season and making Auburn Arena one of the loudest venues in the SEC."


title: Auburn Tigers men's basketball

text: The Auburn student section was previously known as Lebo's Lunatics during Jeff Lebo's tenure at Auburn and the Cliff Dwellers during Cliff Ellis' tenure.


title: Call of Duty 2: Big Red One

text: Call of Duty 2: Big Red One is a first-person shooter video game developed by Treyarch and High Voltage Software and published by Activision for GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox. It is a side-story of the original game "Call of Duty 2", which was released on PC and Xbox 360 in the same year.


title: Call of Duty 2: Big Red One

text: "Big Red One" differs from other games in the "Call of Duty" franchise in that it focuses on a single Allied formation in World War II: the U.S. Army's 1st Infantry Division, which goes by the nickname "Big Red One" due to their unit patch which features a large, red number one. The game covers the division's part in the North Africa Campaign, the invasion of Sicily, the landing on Omaha Beach in Europe and moving east, and eventually crossing the Siegfried Line into Germany. Each chapter is book-ended with period footage from the Military Channel, with voiceovers courtesy of Mark Hamill (who appeared in the Sam Fuller film "The Big Red One"), imitating a World War II documentary.


title: Call of Duty 2: Big Red One

text: The game features several actors from the HBO miniseries "Band of Brothers", including Michael Cudlitz, James Madio, Frank John Hughes, Richard Speight Jr., Ross McCall, Rick Gomez, and Rene L. Moreno. The box cover features actor Stephen Saux. The story and characters were written by Aaron Ginsburg and Wade McIntyre.


title: Call of Duty 2: Big Red One

text: In North America, it was later released as part of a compilation pack entitled "Call of Duty: Legacy" for the PlayStation 2 only. The pack included "" and "Big Red One".


title: Call of Duty 2: Big Red One

text: "Call of Duty 2: The Big Red One" is a first-person shooter that has a single-player story mode and a multiplayer mode. The player takes on the role of a soldier protagonist named Roland Roger in specific missions during World War II from the perspective of the American 1st Infantry Division. The player can crouch and lie prone, and is able to scale low walls and other obstacles. Two firearms can be carried, which can be swapped with those left on the battlefield, and both fragmentation and smoke grenades can also be carried. A gun's iron sights can be used to aim more accurately. A compass on the heads-up display (HUD) shows both allies: (United States Army, United States Army Air Forces and United States Navy) and enemies: (German Wehrmacht/Waffen-SS or Afrikakorps, Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine, Vichy French Army and Royal Italian Army), and objective markers to indicate locations the player must reach, areas to defend, or enemy cannons or tanks that the player must plant explosives on to disable. Emplaced weapons such as machine guns and flak cannons are available in some locations to take out enemy forces. In addition, some missions place the player in control of a tank. In one mission, the player assumes the role of Roger's brother "Stretch", a crewman on a United States Army Air Forces B-24 Liberator, and acts as a bombardier and gunner.


title: Call of Duty 2: Big Red One

text: According to review aggregator Metacritic, the game received "generally favorable" reviews from critics.


title: Call of Duty 2: Big Red One

text: The PlayStation 2 version of "Big Red One" received a "Platinum" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 300,000 copies in the United Kingdom.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: The WE Charity scandal was a Canadian political scandal regarding the awarding of a federal contract to WE Charity to administer the $912 million Canada Student Summer Grant program (CSSG) in 2020. The controversy arose when it was revealed that the WE charity had previously paid close family of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to appear at its events, despite making claims to the contrary. In total, Craig Kielburger confirmed at a parliamentary committee, WE Charity paid approximately $425,000 to Trudeau's family including expenses.WE Charity also used pictures of Trudeau's family members as celebrity endorsements in their application. Trudeau stated that WE Charity had been uniquely capable of administering the program as "the only possible option", and that it was the civil service, not him, who decided that WE Charity was the best option. It was noted that not only had the charity employed a daughter of former Finance minister Bill Morneau but a close relationship existed between the Finance Minister and members of its staff.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: Other organizations, such as the Public Service Alliance of Canada and YMCA Canada, expressed skepticism at the claim that WE Charity was the only organization in Canada capable of administering the contract. Evidence discovered by parliamentary committees investigating the scandal suggested a significant degree of preferential treatment given to WE Charity by the civil service, as, while WE Charity was allowed to repeatedly revise its proposals for the program (a common occurrence in sole-source contracts), no call for proposals was ever issued, nor were any received from any other organization. Reports also indicated that this was further amplified by pressure from Morneau to make the selection.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion's report on the involvement of Trudeau, entitled "The Trudeau III Report," confirmed his assertion that Canada's civil service had recommended WE Charity to manage the Canada Student Service Grant program. Dion found that on 22 May 2020 Trudeau agreed to their recommendation following a briefing on the previous day in which they conveyed their determination that WE was the only existing organization capable of managing the nationwide program upon short notice. The report exonerated Trudeau in the scandal, commenting: "In light of the evidence gathered in this examination and for the reasons outlined above, I find that Mr. Trudeau did not contravene subsection 6(1), section 7 or section 21 of the Act." He added: "In my view, the creation and eventual ratification of the (Canada Student Services Grant) was not done improperly."


title: WE Charity scandal

text: In his final report entitled "The Morneau II Report", Dion ruled that Morneau had contravened sections 6(1), 7, and 21 of the Federal Conflict of Interest Act. In the ruling, Dion stated: "The examination found the relationship between Mr. Morneau and WE included an unusually high degree of involvement between their representatives and afforded WE unfettered access to the Office of the Minister of Finance, which amounted to preferential treatment." Dion also ruled that this preferential treatment was a result of the close friendship between Bill Morneau and members of WE Charity. Dion added that "this unfettered access to the Office of the Minister of Finance was based on the identity of WE’s representative, Mr. Craig Kielburger", who was both a constituent and close friend of Bill Morneau.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: In a piece authored for the editorial board of The Cornwall Seeker, forensic accountant, professor and Founding President of the Canadian Academic Accounting Association L.S. Rosen examined allegations of impropriety surrounding the Canadian Student Service Grant program and determined them to be unfounded, writing that "several seemed launched to support attacks on other politicians" and that "WE became "collateral damage" in a battle for political power." Writing for "Education Canada", Professors Karen Mundy of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and Kelly Gallagher-Mackay of Wilfrid Laurier University lamented that, amidst a crisis in Canadian education, WE Charity was prevented from fulfilling its commission, with thousands of youth volunteer tutors sidelined due to the appearance of scandal. Rosen summarized, "A generation of young people lost the opportunity to volunteer and help their country in a time of need."


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On September 20, 2021, having been cleared of wrongdoing and despite numerous other controversies, Trudeau led the Liberal Party to reelection in the 2021 Canadian federal election.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On April 5, 2020 amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic, the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, and his then-Finance Minister Bill Morneau, held a telephone conversation discussing measures to financially assist the country's student population. The Finance Department was tasked with devising a series of measures to address these issues. This would begin a chain of events involving numerous governmental agencies.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: Through a no-bid selection process, WE Charity was chosen to administer the CSSG, which would have created grants for students who volunteered during the COVID-19 pandemic. The contract agreement was signed with WE Charity Foundation, a corporation affiliated with WE Charity, on June 23, 2020. It was agreed that WE Charity, which had already begun incurring eligible expenses for the project on May 5 at their own risk, would be paid $43.53 million to administer the program; $30 million of which was paid to WE Charity Foundation on June 30, 2020. This was later fully refunded. A senior bureaucrat would note that "ESDC thinks that 'WE' might be able to be the volunteer matching third party ... The mission of WE is congruent with national service and they have a massive following on social media."


title: WE Charity scandal

text: Concurrent to these events, and prior to the announcement of the CSSG on June 25, 2020, WE Charity was simultaneously corresponding with the same government agencies ultimately responsible for choosing the administrator of the program. WE Charity would submit numerous proposals in April, beginning on April 9, 2020, on the topic of youth volunteer award programs. These were able to be reformed into what became the CSSG.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On June 25, 2020 Justin Trudeau announced a series of relief measures for students. Among them was the Canada Student Service Grant program; whereby students would be eligible to receive $1000 for every 100 hours of volunteer activities, up to $5,000.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: The structure of the program, and the selection of WE Charity as its administrator, immediately triggered condemnation amongst the Official Opposition, as well as numerous other groups, such as the Public Service Alliance of Canada, Democracy Watch, and Volunteer Canada who argued that WE Charity:


title: WE Charity scandal

text: The government insisted that, of all the third-party organizations in Canada, WE Charity had been identified as the "only possible option" capable of undertaking the program. On June 29, 2020, Justin Trudeau said that "as the Public Service dug into it, they came back with only one organization that was capable of networking, and organizing, and delivering this program on the scale that we needed it, and that was the WE program." This claim was refuted by the Public Service Alliance of Canada, a union representing government employees, who said in a written statement: "Finally—and let me conclude—if the government had either used existing programs or asked the public service to set up a new student work and payment plan, it would have avoided the conflict of interest issues that have come to light since the WE Charity announcement, and it would have been able to deliver both pay and work experience to students."


title: WE Charity scandal

text: Rachel Wernick, a key figure in the process, stated that WE Charity was the only organization to submit a proposal for the CSSG, although no call for proposals was ever issued; nor were any received from any other organization. These same government employees indicated that other major organizations such as YMCA Canada and United Way had been considered, but at no point did the government contact these agencies. This was despite the fact that the government had been in contact and collaboration with WE Charity regarding the program for at least a month prior. In a statement directly challenging the assertion that WE Charity was the only charity in Canada capable of administering the program, Peter Dinsdale, president and CEO of YMCA Canada, told CTV News in an interview: "At no point did the government contact YMCA Canada about delivering that program." He added that his organization "absolutely" would have been capable of administering the program. Dinsdale however noted that "It would have been tough given the state of YMCAs across the country, given the impact of COVID — really fighting for basic survival," continuing, "In normal times, (this) 100 per cent would have been something we could have done."


title: WE Charity scandal

text: New claims and questions about cronyism surfaced on February 26, 2021 in front of a House of Commons Ethics Committee. Committee MP's questioned a former WE Charity employee asking if the $41,000 in unpaid vacation fees that former Finance Minister Bill Morneau owed to WE Charity could have been perceived as a bribe for the multimillion-dollar tax payer grant he later provided to WE Charity.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: Questions were raised as to whether WE Charity had enjoyed a privileged level of communication with high ranking government employees as a result of its association with prominent individuals. The initial impetus which led to the formation of the CSSG stemmed directly from a conversation between Justin Trudeau and Bill Morneau; both of whom also formally apologized for not recusing themselves from the decision-making process on July 13, 2020.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: Initially, WE Charity and Trudeau insisted that the charity had never paid members of Trudeau's family to appear at events. This was later proven to be a fabrication as on July 9, 2020, it was discovered both the mother and brother of Justin Trudeau had been directly paid tens of thousands of dollars by WE Charity Social Enterprises, a company affiliated with WE Charity, through a third-party speaking agency. Furthermore, Sophie-Gregoire Trudeau was found to have significant food and travel expenditures paid for on behalf of the charity while working for it in an unpaid volunteer position. This was significant as it was claimed the Prime Minister's Office had no involvement in the selection process, and that the selection of WE Charity had been undertaken in a non-partisan manner by the public service. This claim, that there was no involvement from the PMO, was directly contradicted by two April 20 inter-governmental emails regarding the CSSG. The first, sent on April 20, 2020, by assistant deputy finance minister Michelle Kovacevic, read in part: "There has been a lot of back and forth on a student package, as you well know and PMO has been weighing in on a version we shared with our Minister on Saturday." In addition to this, deputy minister of intergovernmental affairs and youth Christiane Fox stated: "I understand WE has been in touch with some of you (or your teams) on a proposal they have for social innovation, picking up from discussions they had with us pre-Covid. I am told they met with Ministers NG, Chagger and others to discuss this + a revised version of the service program. They reached out today as they are also working with DPMO and PMO." Finally, the charity's revised proposal for administering the grant program, which was ultimately accepted by the government for the CSSG, included photos of the organization's "celebrity ambassadors" — among them, the prime minister's mother and wife.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: Bill Morneau and his family were also found to have accepted travel expenditures paid for on behalf of WE Charity, some of which was retroactively reimbursed by Morneau over the course of the scandal. Additionally, one of Morneau's daughters was found to be directly employed by the charity; while another daughter spoke at multiple WE Charity events and was featured in WE's "Future 50" portrait series. During the events of the scandal, an internal-exchange between members of the Finance Department was disclosed wherein the personal relationship between Morneau and the Kielburgers was described as that of “besties”; furthermore, Morneau's office was found to be a key player in the decision to choose WE Charity.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: Prior to the awarding of the contract, WE Charity had been facing difficulties along with the greater economy due to the effects of COVID-19. It was even more vulnerable, as a major component of its income was predicated on global travel, large gathering events such as WE Day, and tourism experiences. Consequently, it had undergone significant layoffs in the period prior to the inception of the CSSG.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: Many of these personnel were able to be rehired as a result of the awarding of the program. This was referred to by Charlie Angus, the NDP Shadow Critic, as a bailout for friends of the Liberal Party. In March 2020, a significant proportion of the board of directors at WE Charity had been abruptly replaced. WE Charity stated that this had been typical conduct, as the contracts had expired naturally, but it was later revealed that the positions were slated to end on August 31, 2020, not March 2020.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: WE Charity has repeatedly asserted it was in no financial distress prior to, or during the scandal. This claim is challenged by the fact that on July 12, 2020, it laid off hundreds of staff, followed by the sale of its Canadian real-estate and more layoffs in August, before eventually closing all of its Canadian operations by September.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: Writing for the Cornwall Seeker, forensic accountant L.S. Rosen refuted the notion that the Student Grant program amounted to a public "bail-out" of WE Charity, finding preexisting assets sufficient to support WE’s continuing operations while the structure of the program did not allow the possibility of any net gains.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: WE Charity was not a registered lobby group at the time of the events, but it retroactively registered as a lobby group on August 13, 2020, with 18 individuals registered to lobby 19 governmental departments. In response to allegations of illegal lobbying activities, WE Charity's Executive Director Dalal Al-Waheidi stated that WE Charity had only spent about one to three per cent of its overall "budget and engagement" on communicating with government and noted the lobbying act only requires organizations which spend twenty percent or more of their budget on those activities to register.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: Mark Blumberg, a lawyer with Blumberg Segal LLP, noted that given WE Charity's previous operating budget of $65 million in 2018, three percent of that would still be a considerable amount. Additionally, former Liberal Party National Director Jamie Carroll, who had previously been indicted through the lobbying act, described it as a "sweetheart deal" as WE Charity was allowed to file its lobbying activities for the two previous years retroactively.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On May 29, 2020 WE Charity hired a third-party public relations firm, National, in order to administer the program in Quebec and French-speaking regions. National itself was in the process of identifying further community groups within Quebec, via Members of Parliament, prior to the cancellation of the CSSG. The amount paid by WE Charity to National was not disclosed by the charity. This challenged the assertion that WE Charity was the only organization capable of administering the program, as it could not operate on a nationwide basis without itself contracting a third party.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: Concerns were raised regarding potential violations of provincial labour laws. The program was seen by some as potentially open to the exploitation of a vulnerable demographic, in a scarce job market, by compensating them at a lower rate than legally mandated in any province. The lowest allowed minimum wage in Canada varies between provinces ranging from $11–$15/hour, the CSSG would have compensated students at $10/hour. While the program stipulated that volunteers should not be used by an organization to replace paid employees, job titles like "translator", "digital designer", and "content creator" were among the generally paid positions being offered through the program.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: Prior to the awarding of the contract WE Charity had been experiencing layoffs. Having students conduct WE Charity work at a reduced wage in the form of volunteerism which was previously conducted by paid employees was seen as a potential conflict of interest, as WE Charity would be both a beneficiary and distributor of the award money. Additional concerns regarding a conflict of interest were raised, as hundreds of the volunteer opportunities created by the CSSG were with WE Charity itself, conducting work for the charity.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: In addition to the Ethics Committee, a further two governmental committees would be established to investigate the scandal: on Finance and Government Operations. These would continue to run from their inception until August 18, when the government was prorogued, ending all sitting committees. Numerous individuals would be called to testify including the Kielburgers, the Prime Minister, Members of Parliament and public servants. From these committee there would be a number of important outcomes. One major piece of evidence that was uncovered through committee investigation was the revelation, on July 9, that WE Charity had directly paid members of the Prime Minister's family. This was not disclosed by either party, who had in fact stated that the family had not been paid, and had to be discovered as a result of parliamentary investigation.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: During testimony on July 22, 2020, Bill Morneau revealed that he had undisclosed travel expenditures from years prior, paid for by WE Charity. Morneau apologized and explained to the committee that he had forgotten about the costs, and had repaid $41,366 that same day. This would haunt Morneau throughout the scandal, as the forgetting of the payment was seen as incongruent to his role as Finance Minister, and the ability to write a cheque for that amount, when many Canadians were applying for COVID-19 benefits in the form of a $2000 monthly emergency payment, was seen as out of touch. In his testimony to the Standing Committee on Finance on July 28, 2018, Marc Kielburger said: "Sir, yes, we're happy to provide that information in terms of especially the reimbursement of travel expenses that was specifically requested."


title: WE Charity scandal

text: Another consequence of these committee investigations was the eventual release of a massive quantity of data pertaining to the scandal on August 18, 2020. Included were personal correspondence and inter-governmental memos written by the individuals responsible for the no-bid selection process. Contained within this file were significant disclosures, such as the awareness of the “bestie” relationship which existed between Morneau and the Kielburgers. Moreover, these files strongly suggested that the public service had been pressured by political forces to select WE Charity and that there had been a significant amount of governmental collaboration with WE Charity prior to the creation of the program. A significant portion of the documents had experienced severe redactions however, rendering much of the information incomprehensible. It was later found that these redactions had been done in an inappropriate manner, by individuals who were not authorized to make them.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On August 17, 2020, Bill Morneau announced his resignation as the Finance Minister. The stated reason for his resignation was that it was the right time for a new Finance Minister in light of the evolving pandemic. Many however, saw the timing as related to the ongoing investigations into the WE Scandal and increasing pressure by opposition members for his resignation.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On August 18, 2020, Justin Trudeau officially prorogued parliament. This disbanded all the sitting committees investigating the WE Charity Scandal. This was condemned by the opposition as a tactic to avoid scrutiny, if not an outright coverup as the timing of the prorogation occurred on the same day as the release of the previously mentioned, redacted, 5000-page dossier. Although a significant portion of the documents contained inappropriate levels of redaction, these were unable to be addressed due to the prorogation. In a 2015 campaign manifesto, Justin Trudeau promised to never make use of prorogation to avoid scrutiny; he had repeatedly castigated the practice of prorogation, even attending an anti-prorogation rally in 2010. The prorogation had an additional consequence in that WE Charity, which had explicitly promised to release their side of the documents relating to the scandal weeks earlier in July, then refused to release them, as there were no standing committees to submit them to; WE Charity went on to label attempts to acquire this information as "politicking".


title: WE Charity scandal

text: Supporters of the prorogation suggested the scandal had no impact on the decision, and pointed to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis as necessitating a cessation in parliamentary debate while the government reset its policy in light of the unprecedented events.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On September 23, 2020 the second session of the 43rd parliament was officially opened with a Speech from the Throne by Governor General Julie Payette.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: Efforts to re-establish the investigations tasked with examining the scandal were repeatedly blocked by the Liberal Party through the use of parliamentary procedure and filibuster; this would continue into November.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On October 29, 2020 two reports on WE Charity were published. These reports were funded by the Stillman Foundation, a Minnesota-based US organization which has longstanding ties to WE Charity.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: The first report by Matt Torigian, former Deputy Solicitor General for the province of Ontario, concluded there had been no ethical or legal violations in the awarding of the contract; Torigian would go on to broadcast these findings in an opinion column of the "Toronto Star". The second report, a forensic audit by accountant Al Rosen, found WE Charity had been in excellent financial health prior to the events of the scandal.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: The Toronto Star would issue an editorial on November 6, 2020 apologizing to its readers noting "The Star's failing here was not making clear to readers who was behind the reports." The report was initially branded an independent inquiry; the fact that a major sponsor of WE Charity had commissioned it was omitted entirely. "We fully realized the problem and wanted to correct it precisely because of transparency," said Andrew Phillips, the editorial page editor.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: Testimony to Canada's House of Commons Ethics Committee on February 26, 2021 led NDP Member of Parliament, Charlie Angus, to raise concerns as to why the Stillman Foundation would take out expensive full-page ads in major Canadian newspapers and conduct an extensive online campaign to promote the innocence of WE Charity while they are so closely linked to WE Charity's board of directors.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On Friday February 26, 2021 the House of Commons Ethics Committee heard new testimony from a former WE Charity donor, Reed Cowan, saying that WE Charity had removed a plaque honoring his deceased child. Video evidence showed that a new plaque had been put up to replace the plaque that carried the legacy of Wesley Cowan. WE Charity described this as a misunderstanding by Cowan, noting "WE's schoolhouses in Kenya are built to the same specifications and look similar to one another, so we understand Mr. Cowan’s confusion." The charity also noted after Cowan brought the error to WE's attention, it had apologized and installed a second plaque in January 2021. Following Cowan's testimony the House Ethics Committee summoned the Kielburgers to appear the following Monday.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On March 1, 2021 WE Charity released a statement labelling the committee investigation as highly partisan. Furthermore, it declared that, as five of its employees had already been subject to committee testimony, it would not cooperate with any summons.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: NDP Member of Parliament Charlie Angus would note that other executives from WE Charity such as Victor Li, the CFO, had also recently refused to voluntarily testify before the House Ethics Committee and had to be ordered to appear on February 19, 2021.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On March 8, 2021 the House Ethics Committee unanimously passed a motion ordering the Kielburgers to testify on, or before, March 12, 2021. A refusal would have seen the motion passed to the House of Commons where Members of Parliament would vote whether to make it a legally binding summons. Later on this day, the Kielburgers agreed to testify, on the condition that the date be pushed back to March 15, 2021 and that they have legal counsel present.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: In a detailed report released May 13, 2021, Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion ruled that WE Charity did not receive any preferential treatment from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Dion refuted the claim that WE Charity founders Craig and Marc Kielburger were friends with the Trudeau family, writing: "During the examination, I determined there was no friendship between Mr. Trudeau and the Kielburgers, nor was Mr. Trudeau involved in any discussions with them leading to the decisions." He also ruled that Trudeau's wife Sophie's volunteer work for WE Charity did not constitute a conflict of interest, and that none of Trudeau's relatives could have personally benefited from the government's contracts with WE Charity.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: The first report, entitled "The Trudeau III Report", exonerated the Prime Minister of all charges. The report found that "the appearance of conflict is insufficient to cause a contravention of the Act's substantive rules." In this case, the Ethics Commissioner ruled that there was neither a close relationship, nor fiscally beneficial relationship between the Trudeau Family and WE Charity, nor was the Prime Minister "involved in any discussions with them leading to the decisions."


title: WE Charity scandal

text: The second report, entitled "The Morneau II Report", found the Finance Minister had broken three conflict of interest laws. In his ruling, the Ethics Commissioner stated that despite claims to the contrary, there existed a very close personal relationship between Bill Morneau and members of WE Charity. It was also ruled that Morneau "had the opportunity to improperly further WE's private interests", and in the final ruling Dion wrote: "I am of the view that Mr. Morneau gave WE preferential treatment by permitting his ministerial staff to disproportionately assist it when it sought federal funding. ... I therefore found that Mr. Morneau contravened subsection 6(1), section 7 and section 21 of the Act."


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On April 5, 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Former Finance Minister Bill Morneau were recorded in a telephone conversation discussing students, volunteer opportunities, and summer work programs within the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The Finance Department was tasked with coming up with a number of options to address these issues.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On April 7, 2020, Small Business Minister Mary Ng and WE Charity Co-Founder Craig Kielburger had a telephone call in which WE Charity was asked to submit a pre-established proposal regarding a youth entrepreneurship program. The Finance Department contacted a number of organizations including WE Charity. The date given by the Finance Department for this call was April 7 while WE Charity stated it occurred on April 8. The number of organizations contacted is unknown as it was later discovered that a number of organizations which had been listed as having been contacted, such as the YMCA, were never contacted and "most were never told" about the program.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On April 9, 2020, WE Charity sent an unsolicited proposal to the Government of Canada, specifically the offices of Youth Minister Bardish Chagger and Mary Ng, regarding a program that would seek to award youth monetary grants for the purpose of entrepreneurship. WE Charity has repeatedly stressed that this unsolicited exchange was "distinct and clearly unrelated" to the later proposals.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On April 17, 2020, Chagger spoke with WE co-founder Craig Kielburger to discuss a second proposal by the group to create a youth social entrepreneurship program. Kielburger later sent an email to Chagger thanking her for considering this proposal on April 22, 2020. While it was initially stated that this second proposal was rejected by the government, documents released over the course of the scandal indicated that this proposal was instead repeatedly revised. There was a significant amount of communication between WE Charity and government officials from this date on in order to adapt WE Charity's proposal to ensure it best fit the "ministry's mandate". (See August 13, and August 18)


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On April 18, 2020 the Finance Department discussed involving a third-party to administer the program. According to Morneau, "it was the first time he was involved in any talk about WE and the grant program."


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On April 19, 2020, Rachel Wernick, a senior government official with Employment and Social Development Canada, made a phone call to Craig Kielburger to discuss youth programs and request a proposal as per his conversation with Chagger on April 17, 2020. During this exchange, the earlier April 9 proposal was raised and it was agreed that it, as well as a second proposal, would be forwarded to the government.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On April 20, 2020 officials in the Finance Department spoke with representatives from WE Charity to discuss a volunteer program. Notes provided by the minister's office said WE Charity would "rework" its proposal to the government to "fully meet the policy objective of national service." On the same day, WE Charity submitted a proposal to the privy council.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: Also on April 20, as a result of retroactive disclosures related to the release of documents by the committees investigating the scandal, two key emails from this day are disclosed. The first, sent by assistant deputy finance minister Michelle Kovacevic, read in part: "There has been a lot of back and forth on a student package, as you well know and PMO has been weighing in on a version we shared with our Minister on Saturday." In addition to this, deputy minister of intergovernmental affairs and youth Christiane Fox wrote "I understand WE has been in touch with some of you (or your teams) on a proposal they have for social innovation, picking up from discussions they had with us pre-Covid. I am told they met with Ministers NG, Chagger and others to discuss this + a revised version of the service program. They reached out today as they are also working with DPMO and PMO."


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On April 21, 2020 the Finance Department received a proposal from the WE Charity in which it outlined a volunteer program. Also on this day, the Finance Department decided to select a third-party to administer the contract, however it specified that no specific group had been chosen to run it.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On April 22, 2020, the Government of Canada announced a series of measures and future measures to be undertaken to address the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on the student population of Canada. Among these, were plans for a program that would seek to compensate students for volunteer work; awarding up to a $5000 bursary for volunteer work.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On May 4, 2020, a final version of the proposal was submitted by WE Charity to Employment and Social Development Canada; this would ultimately become the Canada Student Service Grant program.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On May 5, 2020, Chagger submitted a recommendation to a special cabinet meeting that WE Charity should be selected to administer the program. This was also the date WE Charity began incurring eligible expenses and began work on the program.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On May 22, 2020 cabinet approved WE Charity as the official third-party administrator of the program.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On June 12, 2020, Marc Kielburger was recorded in a zoom call with youth leaders stating that the Prime Minister's Office had contacted WE Charity directly earlier in April to discuss the administration of the program. This statement was declared a fabrication by Kielburger himself, who later clarified "Speaking loosely and enthusiastically, I incorrectly referred to the Prime Minister's Office. In fact, the outreach came from unelected officials at Employment and Social Development Canada."


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On June 23, 2020 a contract agreement is signed between the government and WE Charity Foundation. WE Charity Foundation is a separate entity from WE Charity.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On June 25, 2020, the Government of Canada announced the Canada Student Service Grant program through the Prime Minister's Office.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On June 30, 2020, the Government of Canada paid $30,000,000 to WE Charity Foundation to administer the program.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On July 3, 2020, the Ethics Commissioner announced an investigation into Trudeau and the decision to have WE Charity administer the program. It was later revealed that Trudeau's mother Margaret and brother Alexandre received $250,000 and $32,000, respectively, for speaking at WE events between 2016 and 2020. Additionally, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, the wife of the Prime Minister, was also found to have been involved with the charity prior to the controversy. Two of the daughters of Minister of Finance Bill Morneau were found to have worked in unrelated work for the charity, one in a paid contract position, and the other as an unpaid volunteer; Morneau did not recuse himself from the cabinet decision for the contract. Opposition parties have called for a variety of actions including the release of documents related to the charity and for high-ranking Liberals to appear before Parliamentary committees; the Conservatives asked for an investigation by the RCMP.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On July 9, 2020, Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet suggested that Prime Minister Trudeau should step aside "for a few months" during the ethics investigation, and "leave responsibilities to the Deputy Prime Minister" Chrystia Freeland. During a press conference in Ottawa on July 16, 2020, Freeland stated that the Prime Minister has her "complete confidence" and that "all of us, everyone in our government, everyone in cabinet, bears responsibility for this situation."


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On July 16, 2020, Minister Chagger told a parliamentary committee that the Trudeau government had been willing to pay WE Charity more than $19.5 million if the Canada Student Service Grant program had been implemented, up to $43.5 million. Chagger went on to say that she was not directed by the prime minister or his staff in suggesting that WE Charity run the program, reiterating that it was a recommendation by the non-partisan civil service. In testimony delivered the same day, Rachel Wernick, the senior assistant deputy minister at Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), corroborated this claim saying that she had recommended WE Charity to administer the program, citing its far-reaching connections to youth and the scale and speed at which the program was to be delivered. Wernick further explained that she made her recommendation because the public service was overburdened with responsibilities pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic, and that while other charities were consulted and considered, the program had to be started quickly, and an open bidding process would have taken months.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On July 21, 2020, Privy Council Clerk Ian Shugart backed up Wernick's statements supporting the Prime Minister's assertions, adding further that there was "no evidence" Trudeau had contact with WE Charity prior to the awarding of the contract, and that the public service and cabinet did not flag any potential conflicts of interest with the program. Shugart went on to say that the public service administering the program would make it less comprehensive than if it had been facilitated through the third-party delivery mechanism originally proposed. Shugart testified that there were misgivings regarding the speed at which government was moving on these programs. Shugart stated:


title: WE Charity scandal

text: With respect to how we made decisions and so on, a lot it was virtually, as committees are experiencing. Often at all hours of the day and night given the amount of business and the extent of impacts of the pandemic, people were pressed, people were tired, some public servants were doing their work but knowing it was not being called on, and other public servants were under pretty unrelenting pressure to deliver, the same is true for ministers. With respect to the substance I would say that none of us have been happy with the speed at which analysis had to be undertaken, in fact, we conveyed informally, as did the former government during the financial crisis, to the office of the auditor general. That we anticipated that there would be mistakes.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On July 22, 2020, Minister of Finance Bill Morneau testified at the Standing Committee on Finance that he recently repaid WE Charity $41,366 for expenses incurred by WE for trips his family took to Kenya and Ecuador in 2017. Morneau said the repayment was done after "a thorough review" of his records, and that "this should've been something that we rectified sooner. It was absolutely an error. In looking through my records, I was completely surprised by the situation."


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On July 27, 2020, media reports revealed that based on documents shared with the Finance Committee, while the $900 million figure originally reported was a maximum budget for the program, officials had drawn up a plan with WE Charity to spend only about half that amount. Additional documents supported the government's claims that the civil service had evaluated several other nonprofits, including Colleges and Institutes Canada, the United Way and Canadian Red Cross, before recommending WE Charity. Officials at some organizations however said they were never contacted to discuss the program despite indications that they had been. Peter Dinsdale, president and CEO of YMCA Canada, said that "[a]t no point did the government contact YMCA Canada about delivering that program." He added that his organization "absolutely" would have been capable of administering the program." Speaking to CTV News, Dinsdale stated that in light of the ongoing pandemic "It would have been tough given the state of YMCAs across the country, given the impact of COVID — really fighting for basic survival. In normal times, [this] 100 per cent would have been something we could have done." In addition to YMCA Canada, the Canadian Wildlife Federation, United Way, Chantiers Jeunesse, 4H Canada, and the Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada all said the government never contacted them about the CSSG — despite all of the organizations' names appearing on the government's list of groups it considered to deliver the program.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On July 28, 2020, Michelle Douglas, former chair of WE Charity's board, testified before the House of Commons finance committee. Douglas had resigned in March 2020, saying publicly that she did so due to "concerning developments" at the charity. She told the committee that during her tenure as chair, WE Charity's board made specific inquiries and were told that speakers were not being paid for appearing at We Day events. Douglas said she resigned because the organization refused to provide the board with financial documents or access to its chief financial officer, Victor Li, when the board was reviewing mass layoffs at the organization. Asked whether she concurred with the government's assertions that WE Charity was the only organization that could deliver the program at the intended scale and capacity, Douglas said that she could not speculate on that prospect because she had resigned months before the contract was awarded. Responding to concerns that WE Charity benefited from a close relationship with the federal Liberals, she went on to say that the board of directors considered WE Charity to be "non-partisan."


title: WE Charity scandal

text: Craig and Marc Kielburger also testified before the finance committee on July 28. The brothers asserted that they did not stand to gain financially from running the program nor did they exploit their ties with the Trudeau family to secure the deal. Asked how "close" their relationship was with the Trudeaus, Craig Kielburger said that neither he nor his brother have ever "socialized" with the prime minister, his wife, his mother or his brother, going on to say that they only invited Sophie Gregoire Trudeau and Margaret Trudeau to take part in wellness programs because of their history of mental health advocacy. They added that elected officials of all political parties at all levels of government had participated in and sponsored WE Charity events, including former Alberta NDP premier Rachel Notley and Laureen Harper, wife of former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, who had hosted a reception for them at 24 Sussex Drive in 2013. The brothers also reiterated that it was a member of the civil service who had reached out to them to discuss the program and that they had mistakenly identified the contact as being from the prime minister's office. Craig Kielburger said that he regretted their team having answered the phone call from the civil service and that they did not foresee the escalating consequences that would arise as a result.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On July 30, 2020, Trudeau and his chief of staff, Katie Telford, testified before the finance committee. In his opening statement, Trudeau said that he was not aware that the public service had chosen WE Charity to administer the program until a briefing on May 8. He expected the preexisting Canada Student Service Corps to deliver it but was informed that they would not be able to do so at the scale and capacity required, in the rapid timeframe in which aid programs were being delivered during the pandemic. He again apologized for not recusing himself from cabinet discussions but reiterated that there was "absolutely no preferential treatment," nor direction or influence, from him or his office in selecting WE Charity to administer the Canada Student Service Grant. He went on further to say that the public service told him that the choice was between having WE Charity administer the program or having no program at all. The same day, Liberal MP Wayne Long released a public letter in which he criticized the government's decision-making process and called for full transparency and reform in the PMO and government more broadly to prevent "a systemic failure" in the future.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: Also on July 30, 2020, the Public Service Alliance of Canada, a union representing federal workers, issued a statement condemning allegations made on July 21, that the public service was unable to administer the program. In its concluding remarks, the statement read "Finally—and let me conclude—if the government had either used existing programs or asked the public service to set up a new student work and payment plan, it would have avoided the conflict of interest issues that have come to light since the WE Charity announcement, and it would have been able to deliver both pay and work experience to students."


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On July 31, 2020, the Government of Ontario announced that it would not be renewing an existing contract the province had with the WE Charity. Although the government did not specify which contract it was cancelling, the Charity was set to administer WE Schools, a $250,000 year-long education program. In a statement to media, the Ministry of Education stated that it "has been directed to not renew the contract with WE and to investigate the expenditures to date."


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On August 11, 2020, WE Charity announced through a spokesman that it had returned $22 million of the $30 million it had received earlier on June 30, and was "waiting on the government to accept the remaining $8 million...".


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On August 13, 2020, WE Charity registered to lobby the government with 18 individuals on record. As part of this agreement, WE Charity was also allowed to retroactively file its lobbying activities which showed it had engaged with numerous government departments 43 times since the beginning of 2020, with more than half of the communications occurring in or after April.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On August 17, 2020, Bill Morneau resigned as Finance Minister and Member of Parliament for Toronto Centre. This move was widely seen by analysts as a forced resignation designed to protect the Liberals from the unfolding scandal by pinning blame on Morneau.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On August 18, 2020, Prime Minister Trudeau suspended the functioning of the committees by asking the Governor General of Canada Julie Payette to prorogue Parliament until September 23 to present a new Speech from the Throne with an updated vision and priorities in light of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. Opposition leader, Andrew Scheer, characterized the prorogation as the government "hiding out" during political controversy. Conservative finance critic, Pierre Poilievre, tweeted that opposition members were demanding access to thousands of pages of documents concerning the controversy before Parliament is prorogued. Trudeau said that the government has released numerous documents that were previously requested by the Opposition, and that opposition members could review them while Parliament is prorogued. Many of these documents however were heavily redacted, and there were questions raised regarding whether what had been censored had been done so appropriately, according to House of Commons Law Clerk Philippe Dufresne, who stated that "public servants went too far in redacting the WE Charity documents released to MPs."


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On August 19, 2020, the Canadian Press reported that documents released by the government show that federal public servants recommended the student service grant program be administered by WE Charity. It also reported that documents suggest the government had "nudged" the public service in that direction.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On August 30, 2020 WE Charity, through its lawyer William McDowell, refused the opposition's requests for documents; the disclosure of which had been promised by the Kielburgers during their July 28 testimony. The reasons cited by WE Charity for not releasing the documents were "The committees ceased to exist with the prorogation of Parliament. There is no committee to receive the documents...when there is a new committee, our clients will be pleased to communicate with the clerk of the new committee regarding the production of documents."


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On September 4, 2020 WE Charity Foundation, through a Twitter statement, announced it had repaid the remaining balance of the $30 million it had received on June 30, 2020.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On September 9, 2020, WE Charity announced that it was closing its operations in Canada due to political fallout from the controversy and the effects of COVID-19. The organization will establish an endowment to be overseen by a new board of governors.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On October 22, 2020, Queen's University announces that they are ending ties with the WE Charity. "While WE Charity is committed to completing their ongoing sustainable development projects around the world, we decided that it was the best decision to contribute to a new organization as WE Charity is planning to close operations in Canada," The Queen's WE Team has said in a post to their social media.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On October 29, 2020, the Ethics Commissioner discontinued his investigation into Bill Morneau's trips to Kenya and Ecuador that were funded by WE Charity, saying in a letter that he accepted Morneau's contention that he thought he had reimbursed the travel costs. The letter also indicated that Morneau and Trudeau remained under investigation for not recusing from cabinet discussions pertaining to the program. That same day, WE Charity issued a press release expressing satisfaction with the Ethics Commissioner's findings, in addition to announcing the publication of an independent forensic audit of the Canada Student Service Grant and WE Charity's finances conducted by several non-partisan analysts, including forensic accountant Al Rosen and Matt Torigian, the former Deputy Solicitor General for the province of Ontario. According to Torigian, "the CSSG Program was not pre-determined for WE Charity to implement; the government approached WE Charity through the proper channels, requesting that the charity submit a proposal." Parliamentary committees nevertheless continued to press the government on the matter.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On Friday February 26, 2021 the Canadian House of Commons Ethics Committee heard new testimony from a former WE Charity donor, Reed Cowan, saying that WE Charity removed a plaque honoring his dead child. Video evidence shows that a new plaque tied to WE Charity board of director, David Stillman, had been put up to replace the plaque that carried the legacy of Wesley Cowan.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On February 28, 2021, NDP MP Charlie Angus called on the RCMP and CRA to open an investigation into potential financial fraud conducted by WE Charity. Angus called the testimony from donor Reed Cowan "explosive" and demanded a new level of transparency for all parties involved. After being pressured and harassed by WE Charity contacts, donor Reed Cowan issued a personal plea and demand for full transparency into alleged major international financial fraud by WE Charity. Cowan called for the charity to return all funds raised in the name of his deceased son, Wesley, 4, who died in 2006 following an accident. "I demand that every penny paid to WE and Free the Children by the groups I brought there for what feels like a sham experience be immediately reimbursed. Every penny," he said in a video statement posted on YouTube on February 27, 2021. Cowan said he has repeatedly asked for an accounting of where his money went and has never received that information from WE Charity.


title: WE Charity scandal

text: On May 13, 2021, the Ethics Commissioner cleared Trudeau of involvement in the We Charity scandal; the Ethics Commissioner found that former Finance Minister Bill Morneau was in violation of the Conflict of Interest Act in relation to awarding We Charity the contract for the Canada Student Emergency Benefit.


title: Altice USA

text: Altice USA, Inc., commonly known as Altice, is an American cable television provider with headquarters in New York City. It delivers pay television, Internet access, telephone services, and original television content to approximately 4.9 million residential and business customers in 21 states.


title: Altice USA

text: As a multiple-systems operator, the company operates the Optimum brand. The company also provides international news through the February 2017 U.S. launch of i24NEWS and local news through News 12 Networks. It formerly operated the Suddenlink brand.


title: Altice USA

text: With its combined brands, Altice USA is the fourth-largest cable provider in the U.S., having customers residing in the New York City tri-state area, as well as several midwestern and southern states.


title: Altice USA

text: In November 2016, Altice USA announced a five-year plan for fiber-to-the-home to build a network capable of delivering 10 Gbit/s broadband speed. In August 2017, the company stated it was on track to reach one million homes by the end of 2018.


title: Altice USA

text: Altice USA is based at One Court Square in Long Island City, Queens with its operational center located at Cablevision's former headquarters in Bethpage, New York.


title: Altice USA

text: On May 20, 2015, Netherlands-based Altice NV announced that it would enter the U.S. cable market by purchasing Suddenlink Communications, the country's 7th-largest cable provider, for $9.1 billion. The acquisition closed on December 21, 2015.


title: Altice USA

text: On September 17, 2015, Altice NV announced its intention to acquire Cablevision from the Dolan family and other public shareholders for $17.7 billion. The deal was approved by the FCC on May 3, 2016 and after approval from various regional regulators such as New Jersey's Board of Public Utilities and the New York Public Service Commission, closed on June 21, 2016. Under the terms of the deal, Altice paid $34.90 in cash for each share in Cablevision and a 22% premium to the company's stock price; Altice also assumed Cablevision's debt. Prior to this, Altice had already acquired St. Louis-based Suddenlink Communications, and both companies became subsidiaries of Altice USA.


title: Altice USA

text: In May 2017, Altice USA announced its intention to rebrand its Suddenlink and Cablevision properties under the Altice name by the end of the second quarter of 2018.


title: Altice USA

text: On January 8, 2018, Altice NV announced that it will spin-off Altice USA into a separate company. Patrick Drahi will maintain control of both companies, although they will be led by separate management teams.


title: Altice USA

text: On February 14, 2020, Altice USA announced that it has bought Service Electric Broadband Cable in New Jersey. The deal closed in July.


title: Altice USA

text: On March 1, 2021, Altice USA announced that it would acquire Morris Broadband in North Carolina for $310 million which was later closed on April 6, 2021. Altice later announced that Morris Broadband would be rebranded into the Optimum name.


title: Altice USA

text: Altice engaged in a carriage dispute with the Dolan family (the former owners of Cablevision). Altice's contract to carry AMC Networks group of channels was to expire on December 31, 2016. On December 28 the two sides reached an agreement, three days before their contract with AMC expired.


title: Altice USA

text: Altice engaged in a dispute with The Walt Disney Company; the contract to carry the company's channels was set to expire on October 1, 2017.


title: Altice USA

text: On October 1, 2017, Disney and Altice reached a last-minute agreement to continue carrying the company's channels; this narrowly averted what would have been a blackout of ABC-owned stations WABC-TV and WPVI-TV, along with the ESPN family of networks and various other channels. As part of the agreement, ESPN Classic was removed from the Altice lineup.


title: Altice USA

text: On January 1, 2018, Altice dropped Starz, Starz Encore, and all of their channels from its channel lineup. The dispute came after the companies were unable to reach an agreement. The dispute ended on February 13, 2018 after both companies reached a new multi-year agreement.


title: Altice USA

text: On September 22, 2018, 21st Century Fox announced that all of its entertainment and sports channels, including Fox owned-and-operated station WNYW and MyNetworkTV O&O WWOR-TV, would be removed from Altice on October 1 if a new retransmission agreement was not reached by that date.


title: Leir of Britain

text: Leir was a legendary king of the Britons whose story was recounted by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his pseudohistorical 12th-century "History of the Kings of Britain". According to Geoffrey's genealogy of the British dynasty, Leir's reign would have occurred around the 8th century BC, around the time of the founding of Rome. The story was modified and retold by William Shakespeare in his Jacobean tragedy "King Lear".


title: Leir of Britain

text: Geoffrey of Monmouth identified Leir as the eponymous founder of the city of Leicester ("Ligoraceastre" in Old English; , ), which he called (using the Old Welsh form of the city's name) "Kaerleir" ("City of Leir").


title: Leir of Britain

text: "Leir", "Lerion", and "Ligora(ceastre)" all derive from the old Brittonic name of the River Soar, *"Ligera" or *"Ligora".


title: Leir of Britain

text: Leir's story was first recorded in Geoffrey of Monmouth's "History of the Kings of Britain". In it, Leir is part of the dynasty of Brutus of Britain and succeeded to the throne after his father Bladud died while attempting to fly with artificial wings. The dating is inexact, but Geoffrey made Bladud a contemporary of the biblical prophet Elijah. Leir was given the longest reign of Geoffrey's kings, ruling for 60 years. Geoffrey claimed he was the eponymous founder of Leicester in England.


title: Leir of Britain

text: Leir was said to have been the end of Brutus of Troy's male line of descent, siring three daughters: Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia. As he neared his death, he divided his kingdom among them. Goneril and Regan flattered their father and, at the advice of Leir's nobles, were married off to the Dukes of Albany and Cornwall, respectively. Cordelia, despite being her father's favourite, refused to flatter the king, feeling that she should not need to make special assurances of her love, and was given no land to rule. King Aganippus of the Franks courted and married Cordelia, despite Leir's refusal to pay a dowry. Leir then gave Goneril and Regan half his kingdom, planning to bequeath them the remainder at his death; instead, his sons-in-law rebelled and seized the whole of it. Duke Maglaurus of Albany, Goneril's husband, maintained Leir with a retinue of 60 knights, but his wife reduced this by half after two years. Leir then fled to Regan, who reduced his entourage to only five men. Returning to Albany and pleading with Goneril, Leir was left with a single knight for protection.


title: Leir of Britain

text: At this point, Leir feared both his older daughters and fled to France. He sent Cordelia a messenger when he was outside her court at Karitia. She had him bathed, royally clothed, and assigned a fittingly large band of retainers. He was then officially received by the king and made regent of France, with the Frankish nobles vowing to restore him to his former glory. Leir, Cordelia, and her husband invaded Britain and successfully overthrew his other daughters and sons-in-law. Leir ruled three years and then died. Cordelia succeeded him and buried him in an underground shrine to the god Janus beneath the River Soar near Leicester—allegedly the current site of the city's Jewry Wall. An annual feast was held nearby in his honour.


title: Leir of Britain

text: Leir's life was dramatised on the Elizabethan stage in an anonymous play, "King Leir", which was registered in 1594 and published in 1605 under the title "The True Chronicle History of King Leir, and his three daughters, Gonorill, Ragan, and Cordella". This precursor to Shakespeare's tragedy was a comedy, repeating Geoffrey's story and ending happily with Leir's restoration to power. The story also appears in John Higgins's "Mirror for Magistrates", Edmund Spenser's "The Faerie Queene", and other works.


title: Indian indenture system

text: The Indian indenture system was a system of indentured servitude, by which more than one million Indians were transported to labour in European colonies, as a substitute for slave labor, following the abolition of the trade in the early 19th century. The system expanded after the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1833, in the French colonies in 1848, and in the Dutch Empire in 1863. British Indian indentureship lasted till the 1920s. This resulted in the development of a large Indian diaspora in the Caribbean, Natal (South Africa), East Africa, Réunion, Mauritius, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Myanmar, British Guyana, to Fiji, as well as the growth of Indo-Caribbean, Indo-African, Indo-Fijian, Indo-Malaysian, Indo-Guyanese and Indo-Singaporean populations.


title: Indian indenture system

text: On 18 January 1826, the Government of the French Indian Ocean island of Réunion laid down terms for the introduction of Indian labourers to the colony. Each man was required to appear before a magistrate and declare that he was going voluntarily. This agreement is known as girmit and it outlined a period of five years labour in the colonies with pay of 8 Rupees per month (about $4 in 1826) and rations, provided labourers had been transported from Pondicherry and Karaikal.


title: Indian indenture system

text: The first attempt at importing Indian labour into Mauritius, in 1829, ended in failure, but by 1838, 25,000 Indian labourers had been shipped to Mauritius.


title: Indian indenture system

text: The Indian indenture system was put in place initially at the behest of sugar planters in colonial territories, who hoped the system would provide reliable cheap labour similar to the conditions under slavery. The new system was expected to demonstrate the superiority of "free" over slave labour in the production of tropical products for imperial markets.


title: Indian indenture system

text: The East India Company's Regulations of 1837 laid down specific conditions for the dispatch of Indian labour from Calcutta. The would-be emigrant and his emigration agent were required to appear before an officer designated by the Government of British India, with a written statement of the terms of the contract. The length of service was to be five years, renewable for further five-year terms. The emigrant was to be returned at the end of his service to the port of departure. Each emigrant vessel was required to conform to certain standards of space, diet etc. and to carry a medical officer. In 1837 this scheme was extended to Madras.


title: Indian indenture system

text: As soon as the new system of emigration of labour became known, a campaign similar to the anti-slavery campaign sprang up in Britain and India. On 1 August 1838, a committee was appointed to inquire into the export of Indian labour. It heard reports of abuses of the new system. On 29 May 1839, overseas manual labour was prohibited and any person effecting such emigration was liable to a 200 Rupee fine or three months in jail. After prohibition, a few Indian labourers continued to be sent Mauritius via Pondicherry (a French enclave in South India).


title: Indian indenture system

text: Further suspensions of Indian immigration happened during the 19th century. For example, between 1848 and 1851 Indian immigration was stopped towards British Guiana because of the economic and political unrest due to the Sugar Duties Act of 1846.


title: Indian indenture system

text: European planters in Mauritius and the Caribbean worked hard to overturn the ban, while the anti-slavery committee worked just as hard to uphold it. The Government of the East India Company finally capitulated under intense pressure from European planters and their supporters: On 2 December 1842, the British Government permitted emigration from Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras to Mauritius. Emigration Agents were appointed at each departure point. There were penalties for abuse of the system. Return passage had to be provided at any time after five years when claimed. After the lifting of the ban, the first ship left Calcutta for Mauritius on 23 January 1843. The Protector of the Immigrants in Mauritius reported that a ship arrived every few days with a human consignment and a large number of immigrants were causing a backlog in processing and he asked for help. During 1843, 30,218 male and 4,307 female indentured immigrants entered Mauritius. The first ship from Madras arrived in Mauritius on 21 April 1843.


title: Indian indenture system

text: The existing regulations failed to stamp out abuses of the system, which continued, including recruitment by false pretences and consequently, in 1843 the Government of Bengal, was forced to restrict emigration from Calcutta, only permitting departure after the signing of a certificate from the Agent and countersigned by the Protector. Migration to Mauritius continued, with 9,709 male Coolies (Dhangars), and 1,840 female wives and daughters transported in 1844.


title: Indian indenture system

text: The repatriation of Indians who had completed indenture remained a problem with a high death rate and investigations revealed that regulations for the return voyages were not being satisfactorily followed.


title: Indian indenture system

text: Without enough recruits from Calcutta to satisfy the demands of European planters in Mauritius, permission was granted in 1847 to reopen emigration from Madras with the first ship leaving Madras for Mauritius in 1850.


title: Indian indenture system

text: There were also Company officials stationed in colonies that hosted Indian immigrants. For example, when the Danish plantation owners began recruiting Indians, the British representative - also considered a consul - to the Danish West Indies was called the Protector of Immigrants. This official oversaw the welfare of the workers and ensured that the terms of the agreement they signed were implemented.


title: Indian indenture system

text: After the end of slavery, the European-led West Indian sugar colonies tried the use of emancipated slaves, families from Ireland, Germany and Malta and Portuguese from Madeira. All these efforts failed to satisfy the labour needs of the colonies due to high mortality of the new arrivals and their reluctance to continue working at the end of their indenture. On 16 November 1844, the British Indian Government legalised emigration to Jamaica, Trinidad and Demerara (Guyana). The first ship, the "Whitby", sailed from Port Calcutta for British Guiana on 13 January 1838, and arrived in Berbice on 5 May 1838. Transportation to the Caribbean stopped in 1848 due to problems in the sugar industry and resumed in Demerara and Trinidad in 1851 and Jamaica in 1860.


title: Indian indenture system

text: Importing indentured labour became viable for plantation owners because newly emancipated slaves refused to work for low wages. This is demonstrated in the sheer number of freed slaves in colonies that imported Indian workers. Jamaica had 322,000 while British Guiana and Barbados had about 90,000 and 82,000 freed slaves, respectively. There was also a political incentive to the British import of foreign workers. The influx of Indian workers diminished the competitive leverage and bargaining power of the freed slaves, marginalizing their position within the so-called plantocracy system persisting in the British colonies.


title: Indian indenture system

text: The European planters pressed consistently for longer indentures. In an effort to persuade labourers to stay on, the Mauritius Government, in 1847, offered a gratuity of £2 to each labourer who decided to remain in Mauritius and renounce his claim to a free passage. The Mauritius Government also wanted to discontinue the return passage and finally on 3 August 1852, the Government of British India agreed to change the conditions whereby if a passage was not claimed within six months of entitlement, it would be forfeited, but with safeguards for the sick and poor. A further change in 1852 stipulated that labourers could return after five years (contributing $35 towards the return passage) but would qualify for a free return passage after 10 years. This had a negative effect on recruitment as few wanted to sign up for 10 years and a sum of $35 was prohibitive; the change was discontinued after 1858.


title: Indian indenture system

text: It was also considered that if the indentured labourers had a family life in the colonies they would be more likely to stay on. The proportion of women in early migration to Mauritius was small and the first effort to correct this imbalance was when, on 18 March 1856, the Secretary for the Colonies sent a dispatch to the Governor of Demerara that stated that for the season 1856–7 women must form 25 percent of the total and in the following years males must not exceed three times the number of females dispatched. It was more difficult to induce women from North India to go overseas than those from South India but the Colonial Office persisted and on 30 July 1868 instructions were issued that the proportion of 40 women to 100 men should be adhered to. It remained in force of the rest of the indenture period.


title: Indian indenture system

text: Trinidad followed a different trend where the Government offered the labourers a stake in the colony by providing real inducements to settle when their indentures had expired. From 1851 £10 was paid to all those who forfeited their return passages. This was replaced by a land grant and in 1873 further incentives were provided in the form of of land plus £5 cash. Furthermore, Trinidad adopted an ordinance in 1870 by which new immigrants were not allotted to plantations where the death rate exceeded 7 percent.


title: Indian indenture system

text: The success of the Indian indenture system for the British, at a terrible human cost, did not remain unnoticed. Other European plantation owners began setting up agents in India to recruit manpower. For instance, French sugar colonies hired labour via the French ports in India without knowledge of the British authorities. By 1856, the number of labourers in Réunion is estimated to have reached 37,694. It was not until 25 July 1860 that France was officially permitted by the British authorities to recruit labour for Reunion at a rate of 6,000 annually. This was extended on 1 July 1861 with permission to import ‘free’ labourers into the French colonies of Martinique, Guadeloupe and French Guiana (Cayenne). Indenture was for a period of five years (longer than British colonies at the time), return passage was provided at the end of indenture. (Not after ten as in British colonies) and Governor-General was empowered to suspend emigration to any French colony if any abuse was detected in the system.


title: Indian indenture system

text: Danish plantation owners also began importing Indian workers to St. Croix. This indenture system, however, did not last.


title: Indian indenture system

text: Following introduction of labour laws acceptable to the British Government of India, transportation was extended to the smaller British Caribbean islands; Grenada in 1856, St Lucia in 1858 and St Kitts and St Vincent in 1860. Emigration to Natal was approved on 7 August 1860, and the first ship from Madras arrived in Durban on 16 November 1860, forming the basis of the Indian South African community. The recruits were employed on three-year contracts. The British Government permitted transportation to the Danish colonies in 1862. There was a high mortality rate in the one ship load sent to St Croix, and following adverse reports from the British Consul on the treatment of indentured labourers, further emigration was stopped. The survivors returned to India in 1868, leaving about eighty Indians behind. Permission was granted for emigration to Queensland in 1864, but no Indians were transported under the indenture system to this part of Australia.


title: Indian indenture system

text: There were a lot of discrepancies between systems used for indentured Colonial British Indian labour to various colonies. Colonial British Government regulations of 1864 made general provisions for recruitment of Indian labour in an attempt to minimise abuse of the system. These included the appearance of the recruit before a magistrate in the district of recruitment and not the port of embarkation, licensing of recruiters and penalties to recruiters for not observing rules for recruitment, legally defined rules for the Protector of Emigrants, rules for the depots, payment for agents to be by salary and not commission, the treatment of emigrants on board ships and the proportion of females to males were set uniformly to 25 females to 100 males. Despite this the sugar colonies were able to devise labour laws that were disadvantageous to the immigrants. For example, in Demerara an ordinance in 1864 made it a crime for a labourer to be absent from work, misbehaving or not completing five tasks each week. New labour laws in Mauritius in 1867 made it impossible for time-expired labourers to shake free of the estate economy. They were required to carry passes, which showed their occupation and district and anyone found outside his district was liable to arrest and dispatched Immigration Depot. If he was found to be without employment he was deemed a vagrant.


title: Indian indenture system

text: Transportation of Indian labour to Suriname began under an agreement that has been declared as Imperial. In return for Dutch rights to recruit Indian labour, the Dutch transferred some old forts (remnants of slave trade) in West Africa to the British and also bargained for an end to British claims in Sumatra. Labourers were signed up for five years and were provided with a return passage at the end of this term, but were to be subject to Dutch law. The first ship carrying Indian indentured labourers arrived in Suriname in June 1873 followed by six more ships during the same year.


title: Indian indenture system

text: Following the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire, it was again abolished in the French colonial empire in 1848, and the U.S. abolished slavery in 1865 with the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.


title: Indian indenture system

text: Between 1842 and 1870 a total of 525,482 Indians emigrated to the British and French Colonies. Of these, 351,401 went to Mauritius, 76,691 went to Demerara, 42,519 went to Trinidad, 15,169 went to Jamaica, 6,448 went to Natal, 15,005 went to Réunion and 16,341 went to the other French colonies. This figure does not include the 30,000 who went to Mauritius earlier, labourers who went to Ceylon or Malaya and illegal recruitment to the French colonies. Thus by 1870 the indenture system, transporting Indian labour to the colonies, was an established system of providing labour for European colonial plantations and when, in 1879, Fiji became a recipient of Indian labour it was this same system with a few minor modifications.


title: Indian indenture system

text: Gopal Kirshna Gokhale, a moderate Congress leader, tabled a bill in the Viceroy Legislative Council to end the export of indentured labour to Natal (present day South Africa) in February 1910. The bill passed unanimously and came to effect in July 1911. However, the British-led Indian indenture system for other colonies finally ended in 1917. According to "The Economist", "When the Imperial Legislative Council finally ended indenture because of pressure from Indian nationalists and declining profitability, rather than from humanitarian concerns."


title: Indian indenture system

text: Indo-Caribbean writers have had a strong impact on the literature of the region. In Guyana Indo-Guyanese writers have had a strong impact on the literature of Guyana. Notable writers of Indian descent include Joseph Rahomon and Shana Yardan.


title: Immigration to Norway

text: In 2017, Norway's immigrant population consisted of 883,751 people, making up 16.8% of the country's total population (this includes both foreign-born and Norwegian-born with two foreign-born parents, and four foreign-born grandparents). Of this number, 724,987 are foreign-born, while 158,764 are Norwegian-born with foreign-born parents. The ten most common countries of origin of immigrants residing in Norway are Poland (97,197), Lithuania (37,638), Sweden (36,315), Somalia (28,696), Germany (24,601), Iraq (22,493), Syria (20,823), Philippines (20,537), Pakistan (19,973) and Eritrea (19,957). The immigrant population comprises people from a total of 221 countries and autonomous regions, but 25% of the immigrants are from one of four migrant groups: Polish, Lithuanians, Swedes and Somalis.


title: Immigration to Norway

text: Immigration to Norway has increased over the last decades, beginning in the early 1990s. In 1992, the immigrant population in Norway was 183,000 individuals, representing 4.3% of the total population, and net migration that year was 9,105 people. In 2012, net migration peaked, as 48,714 people came to the country. Since 2013, net migration has decreased. In 2016, net migration was 27,778.


title: Immigration to Norway

text: Historical immigration to Norway started in the Viking Age. The practice of royal intermarriage was common in European aristocracies and elsewhere. Norwegian kings used to seek their wives from other royal houses, in order to foster ties with foreign countries. See the Kings of Norway family tree.


title: Immigration to Norway

text: Other historical fields linked to migrations were trade and academia, bringing workforce and innovation respectively.


title: Immigration to Norway

text: The Hanseatic League introduced large scale trade in Bergen and Northern Norway. Mining in Kongsberg, Røros and other places was made possible by immigrants from nearby countries. During the 19th century the evolution of dairies and the industrial exploitation of waterfalls depended on immigrants.


title: Immigration to Norway

text: Before the University was established in Christiania in 1811, almost all civil servants from up to "circa" 1500, were migrants.


title: Immigration to Norway

text: From the middle of the 20th century, the history of migration to Norway is characterized by four main phases. The first wave of immigrants came during the 1960s, as a result of demand of labor within the secondary labor market. This group was mainly dominated by men from Pakistan and Turkey, who came to work in the oil sector. The shock of the 1973 Oil Crisis resulted in an immigration stop to Norway, which ended this first wave. The next wave came in the late 1970s, and consisted mostly of family members from former immigrants. The third wave of the mid 1980s was an increasing flow of asylum seekers mainly from Iran (Incl. Kurdistan province), Chile, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and the former Yugoslavia. From the beginning of the 21st century until today, Norwegian immigration has been characterized by a more liberal approach to labor immigration, as well as stricter policies towards asylum seekers.


title: Immigration to Norway

text: According to the Norwegian Immigration Act, all foreigners have to apply for permanent residency in order to live and work in Norway, except for citizens of Nordic countries. There are four main reasons for immigration to Norway that are lawfully accepted – employment, education, protection and family reunification. In 2016, most Norwegian immigrants came for family reunification (16,465 people), followed by protection (15,190), work (14,372) and education (4,147). Of the total number of 788,531 people who immigrated between 1990 and 2016, most immigrated for family reunification (283,478), followed by work (262,669), protection (156,590) and education (80,956).


title: Immigration to Norway

text: Norway is part of the European Economic Area (EEA) and the Schengen area. In 2017, 41.2% of the total immigrant population in Norway were from countries in the EU or EEA. 32.4% were from Asia including Turkey, and 13.7% were from Africa. The remaining 12.7% were from European countries not in the EU or EEA, North America, South America and Oceania.


title: Immigration to Norway

text: In 1999, the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (Norwegian: "Utlendingsdirektoratet", UDI) started to use blood testing on Somalis who applied for family reunification with parents. The tests showed that 1 out of 4 lied about the family ties. The tests were later changed to DNA tests to verify family ties. The leader of a Somali community organization in Norway and the Norwegian Medical Association protested the tests and wished they would be discontinued. In 2010, UDI started DNA-tests on Somali childless couples who applied for family reunification where one spouse already resided in Norway. The results showed that 40% of such pairs were siblings. As the tests became widely known, the ratio dropped to 25% and the tests were widened to migrants from other regions.


title: Immigration to Norway

text: By September 2019, 15 foreign residents who had travelled from Norway to Syria or Iraq to join the Islamic State had their residence permits revoked.


title: Immigration to Norway

text: One cause of immigration in the 20th and 21st century is the need for protection in a new country, due to wars, riots, or political persecution in the migrants' home countries. In the 1950s, refugees came from Hungary to Norway, and in the 1970s from Chile and Vietnam. In the mid-1980s, there was an increase in the number of asylum seekers from countries such as Iran (Incl. Kurdistan province) and Sri Lanka. In the 1990s, war refugees from the Balkans were the predominant immigrant group accepted into Norway; a large number of whom have since returned home to the Balkans. Since the end of the 1990s, new groups of asylum seekers from countries such as Iraq, Somalia, and Afghanistan have arrived in Norway.


title: Immigration to Norway

text: The Dublin Regulation in 2001 states that non-European refugees applying for asylum in a Dublin country, will only get their application processed once, in the country where they first apply for asylum.


title: Immigration to Norway

text: During the European migrant crisis in 2015, a total of 31,145 asylum seekers crossed the Norwegian border in 2015. The number had not been as high since the Balkan wars in 1990s. Most of the asylum seekers came from Afghanistan and Syria. In 2016, the number was dramatically reduced by almost 90%. In 2016, 3460 asylum seekers came to Norway. This was partly due to the stricter border control in Europe. The EU-Turkey agreement, implemented 20 March 2016, was made in order strengthen organized channels of immigration to Europe, and prevent irregular migration from Turkey to the EU.


title: Immigration to Norway

text: Norway has also accepted refugees from other EU countries, In 2020 it granted asylum to anti-racism activist Rafał Gaweł from Poland, who was facing political persecution in his home country.


title: Immigration to Norway

text: As part of the UN, Norway receives UN quota refugees. In 2015, the Norwegian government announced that they would receive 8,000 Syrian quota refugees between 2015 and 2017.