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THE WE KERFUFFLE: A NEW ASSUALT ON DEMOCRACY OR THE SAME OLD ELITE ACCOMODATION



BILL LEE

July 15, 2020
There is much concern being expressed, and ink being spilled, on the revelations of the former financial connections of Prime Minister Trudeau and the WE Charity. There are two issues that strike one in all this: first the nature of the WE charity and second the way this kerfuffle is, or should be, highlighting the issue of the connections between corporations and our governments. It has a name, Elite Accommodation.

WE and We to Me: Charity and Business

First the WE. The WE entity is, notwithstanding its status as an NGO and the fawning praise the Keilbergers, Craig and Mark, receive by the media, part of a capitalist enterprise. The WE charity is closely connected to, indeed intertwined with, the Me to We organization which is a business enterprise. The cosy relationship between the for-profit organization and the charity is one where money flows back and forth with tax breaks for Me to We, for giving money to WE and the buying of services by WE from the for profit, Me to We. WE Charity buys promotional goods, school materials and travel services from the business enterprise, ME to WE. In 2019 the WE Charity paid the ME to WE business $3.6m for travel, leadership training services, and promotional goods. In 2019, the ME to WE business contributed $4.4m to the WE Charity. ME to WE is also a corporate partner of WE Days. Further, from what I personally know of them, through a number of acquaintances who have had the misfortune to have worked in one or the other of these organizations, they treat and pay their workers, often young and idealistic post secondary graduates, poorly. As I've suggested, the organizations and their principles have generally received very positive press. For some people however, particularly their ex-workers, these organizations are much less benevolent than they seem.


The Notion and Practice of Elite Accommodation

The second issue that is signalled by the seemingly cosy relationship between Trudeau, his family (and a few other Liberal heavyweights) and the Me to We organization is, sadly, really not unusual in our capitalist democratic political system. Indeed, all political systems in the capitalist democracies practice this kind of self-interested to-ing and fro-ing. It is not new of course and it is not just in the present context.1 We can see this
business (notwithstanding the clumsy way it was managed by Trudeau and his party) as symptomatic of one of the principal process problems in western democracies and it is called, in academic circles, Elite Accommodation. It is the procedure whereby public policies emerge from the interaction of various elites, small groups of people with a disproportionate amount of power in society, who, sharing many socioeconomic characteristics, interests and values, find it relatively easy to come to agreement. The policies, regulations and actions of legislators governing a state are seen as motivated by members of these established elites, either through formal processes or informally over time. The process is not officially sanctioned, of course, and certainly not advertised to the public unless something so noteworthy occurs that the public becomes alerted.2

One aspect of the practice that should concern all of us however, is that it is ubiquitous. So many people who both serve in senior positions in government and senior and lucrative positions in private corporations so that it can be difficult to discern which interest, the public good or corporate interest, is underpinning government policy. There are far, far too cozy and self-serving relationships between the political class and the business class, the people who govern our country and the capitalists, and their minions, who accrue wealth from the country. Think of the easy flow back and forth between the board rooms of the banking “community” and political parties of individuals often found around the cabinet table. The present Minister of Finance, Bill Morneau is a case in point as pointed out in a story by a Reuters correspondent: "Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau, a political newcomer appointed to the powerful post on Wednesday, brings decades of business experience which should reassure corporate Canada even as the Liberal government deploys a deficit-fuelled stimulus plan."3 (Schnurr, 2015) It is not only in the Ministry of Finance that we see evidence of the close relationships. We have numbers of high-ranking military personnel who make it into cabinet and then, after retirement and the mandatory two year waiting period, we find them employed and nicely remunerated as consultants to armament industry corporations. Think of the money flowing into the coffers of the two major parties from corporations and wealthy individuals. Think of the tax breaks offered to think tanks that, for the most part,
represent capitalist ideology. The most obvious, in this context, is the Fraser Institute, well known for its third-rate research and propaganda in support of a variety of causes close to the hearts of various right-wing believers and corporate Canada.4

And thus, Trudeau’s relationship with the Keilbergers is, at base, no different than the ones he and many of the politicians, both Cons and Liberals, in capitalist democracies have with corporate leaders. They are busy scratching each other’s backs ensuring that the system works as it is supposed to, making the wealthy and powerful more wealthy and powerful. And the Canadian citizenry is the loser, both in terms of public money spent, or taxes that are not levied, and in the violence this practice has done to the institution of government and our faith in it. Elite accommodation is a veritable cancer at the heart of our body politic.


References

Canadian Encyclopaedia. (Undated). "Jim Flaherty". https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/jim-flaherty
Charity Intelligence Canada (2020) WE Charity. https://www.charityintelligence.ca/charity.../82-we-charity
Hong, B. (2012) "Charitable Fraser Institute received $4.3 million in foreign funding since 2000". The Vancouver Observer. Aug. 30. https://www.vancouverobserver.com/politics/charitable-fraser-institute-received-43-million-foreign-funding-2000.
Schnurr, L. (2015), "New Canada finance minister Morneau brings corporate experience". Yahoo News. https://news.yahoo.com/canada-finance-minister-morneau-brings-corporate-experience-233756953--sector.html. Nov. 14.
__________________________________1 Minister of Finance in the Chrétien government was the owner of Canada Steamship Lines. The USA has had even a longer history and more of these kinds of episodes, dating at least from the days of Andrew Jackson who made a public virtue of, "To the Victor go the Spoils". David Kennedy was a businessman prior to join becoming Nixon's Treasury Secretary. More recently, Paul O’Neil, a former head of the aluminum giant Alcoa, served as Treasury secretary in G. W Bush's cabinet.

2 If one would like to read fuller discussion of it see: Dyck, R. Blidook, K. and Cochrane, C. (2016),Canadian Politics: Critical Approaches. Nelson College Indigenous; and/or, Marland A. Lawlor, A. and Giasson, T. (2018). “Political Elites in the Age of Digital Media”. in Political Elites in the Age of Digital Media. Marland A. Lawlor, A. and GIASSON, Giasson, T. eds.. Vancouver: UBC Press Pp. 5-28.

3 Lest I give the impression that I'm picking on the Liberal Party, I must point out that the same activity in the cabinet of Stephen Harper. According to the Canadian Encyclopaedia, "Flaherty was the most prominent member of a group of former Mike Harris cabinet ministers that went on to help Stephen Harper win a minority government in Ottawa in early 2006. ... Flaherty, who was named finance minister, took advantage of the situation by tabling a budget that used a fiscal surplus to cut corporate taxes....". More recently, A tweet by Peter McKay, who served in the Conservative Cabinet of Stephen Harper and is the front runner for the Leadership of the Conservative Party today, has tweeted out what a great speech his wife, Nazanin Afshin-Jam, gave at one of the Me to We rallies.
4 The Fraser, received over $4.3 million in the last decade from eight major American foundations including the most powerful players in oil, including the arch right wing and billionaire Koch brothers and pharmaceuticals, (Hong, 2012)

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