The Church of St. John and St. Stephen Home Inc., which organized the fundraiser under what is apparently the charity’s informal name for a fundraising arm, the Grace Foundation, received $4-million in funding from the New Brunswick government, and listed a further $1.7-million in revenue from the sale of goods and services, which were not specified in the report.
The foundation, which must file an annual financial and activity report, also listed land and buildings in Canada at a value of $4.59-million, and a further ownership in “other capital assets.”
Susan Buck, a director and trustee of the Church of St. John and St. Stephen Home Inc., wrote to Mr. Trudeau (Papineau, Que.) in March this year to say an event he spoke at last June had been “a huge disappointment and financial loss” and to request that he reimburse his fee.
Conservatives began pressing the Liberal leader over thousands of dollars he earned as a motivational speaker and fundraiser for charities and other public groups from 2008, when he was first elected to the Commons, and last April, when he became Liberal leader and dropped his speaking tour. “Most parliamentarians raise money for charity, not from charities,” PMO press secretary Julie Vaux told Canadian Press.
Mr. Trudeau had established his speaking engagements as a source of income in 2006, two years before his first election, and earned $15,000 from some appearances speaking to business employee groups and business associations, and $20,000 for one speech to a CIBC Wood Gundy conference in May, 2008, one of his last commercial outings before his election in October that year.
Ian Webster, chair of Grace Foundation and a director and trustee of the Church of St. John and St. Stephen Home Inc., a longstanding care home for older citizens in Saint John, N.B., could not be reached on Monday.
An administrative assistant at the nursing home told The Hill Times that Terrance Macneill, the director of the centre, was away on sick leave and said that she did not have a telephone number for Mr. Webster. A woman at the centre who has been designated to speak on Mr. Macneill’s behalf was also not available on Monday.
But Ceci Flanagan-Snow, a New Brunswick photographer and writer who was among several local business people who sponsored the fundraising event featuring Mr. Trudeau, told The Hill Times that she does not believe Mr. Trudeau should have to reimburse his fee.
Ms. Flanagan-Snow, who runs Picadilly, N.B., business Images by Ceci, said despite the low attendance of about 200 people, the event was not well planned and timed to take place, on June 27, 2012, because vacation and graduation plans have most Saint John citizens preoccupied with other things.
“To me it’s no different than hiring any entertainer for an event, because basically that’s what it was, right,” Ms. Flanagan-Snow told The Hill Times. “It was not a political speech, to me that’s a different kettle of fish, this was strictly a motivational speech and it was geared to getting young people to pay attention to their world.”
Ms. Flanagan-Snow said there are two sides of the issue. “One is the actual speech by Justin Trudeau, which was actually very good, very personable, very informative and it was incidentally a totally non-political speech. In fact at that point, he had not declared himself for the leadership of the Liberal party,” Ms. Flanagan-Snow said. “During the question and answer period at the end of the event, somebody asked him about that and he said at that time, he had not made his decision; that was the only political statement he made in the whole evening, the rest of the time he talked about youth engagement, youth empowerment and getting people involved, basically in the community and life in general and being aware of their world around them.”
Ms. Flanagan-Snow explained that at the beginning of the event, people were scattered throughout the theatre and the MC had to ask people to move to the front rows. The event turned into “more of an intimate conversation,” she said, rather than Mr. Trudeau being on stage talking to empty seats.
“I just really think it was poor timing,” Ms. Flanagan-Snow said, adding that organizers may have focused too much on Mr. Trudeau rather than the fundraising goal.
“I’m not sure about paid advertising, I think there was a little bit, there was a fair PR effort put forth in media releases and involving the local board of trade, Uptown Saint John, which is a business organization, in promoting the event, particularly to their members because they were the target audience for this event,” she said. “I think probably if they had emphasized just a little bit more the fundraising side of it, they might have had more support."
Ms. Flanagan-Snow said that the St. John St. Stephen was fundraising to do infrastructure upgrades. “As to whether they actually succeeded in doing that, I think with this event their board of directors made a tactical decision that their events would be both enlightening and enriching for the community as well as fundraisers, and it didn’t work,” she said. “It just did not work.”
Managers with two other sponsors of the event, an advertising firm called the Wright Agency and the Shadow Lawn Inn, did not return telephone calls.
New Brunswick Conservative MP Rob Moore (Fundy Royal, N.B.) did not return a call, which The Hill Times placed to the office number he included in a news release sent to media on Sunday criticizing Mr. Trudeau.
Government MPs in the Commons began urging Mr. Trudeau last Friday to return the fee. Mr. Trudeau originally said he would not return the fee, but on Sunday told CTV’s Question Period, he is “willing to pay all of the money back, if that’s what it comes to.” Mr. Trudeau said he is “going to fix this” and “make it right.”
For 2012, the Church of St. John and St. Stephen Home Inc. charitable foundation reported a total of $880,000 in salaries for 10 fulltime employees, and a further $1,398,448 in salaries for 78 part-time or part-year employees.
It listed a total of $4,661,494 as its expenditure for all compensation during the year.
Original Article
Source: hilltimes.com
Author: TIM NAUMETZ
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