Charity Intelligence’s Kate Bahen has Lost the Plot

In the cesspool that is social media and in culture at large, we’re seeing more daily evidence that Trudeau Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is spreading. From inflation, to taxes, provincial vaccine mandates and grocery prices – no grievance is too big or too small to blame directly on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He’s become the national sin eater, the person who’s been saddled with all the faults of this country (and its people). In the summer of 2019, I started writing pieces debunking the attack on We Charity and the Kielburger family by Jesse Brown and Canadaland. I thought it was a good case study demonstrating Canadian tall poppy syndrome, anchored in flawed reporting.

I assumed the attacks would blow over, since Canadaland has minimal reach among people who count in this country. Then came the WE Charity Canada Student Service Grant (CSSG) affair in the Covid summer of 2020, an exercise in media and political smear with few precedents in Canada.

Since then, I’ve noticed a phenomenon that is less widespread than TDS, but one that is equally unhinged – I call it WE Charity Derangement Syndrome (WECDS). Infected people believe that everything the charity and its founders were involved in was corrupt, fake, and sinister: everything the charity did was a smoke screen to hide the creation of a Kielburger real estate empire from donations meant for children.

Everyone’s in on it, of course: federal bureaucrats, politicians from all parties who supported the charity before 2020, celebrities, corporations, the Globe and Mail, the CBC, world leaders, and the entire Trudeau family… and me, I suppose.

Patient zero of WECDS was Jesse Brown. He became obsessed with the charity and the Kielburgers, dedicating years of his life to try and find something, anything, wrong. For a while, he gave up, concluding in 2019, “There is no smoking gun. There is no big scandal… one thing that became really clear to us early on is that WE is legit. This was never going to be a story about a crooked charity.”

I thought he was cured of his WECD, but he returned as Witness Brown in a 2020 parliamentary committee hearing when the CSSG story broke. Then came his White Saviors podcast, when Witness Brown put on his producer hat and became Journalist Brown before assuming his current role as “The Defendant” after being sued by over Theresa Kielburger over statements made during the podcast (more on the suit, here).

The WECDS infection spread around the country almost as quickly as COVID-19. Politicians like Charlie Angus and Pierre Poilievre caught bad, as did the Canadian media pack, including the CBC’s Fifth Estate, which now a defendant in a U.S. federal court. Amid the wild accusations fueled by Brown and others, Kate Bahen, the Managing Director of Charity Intelligence, was thrust into the spotlight, cast as an “expert” on WE Charity.

Recently, Bahen strongly implied that WE bribed the judge who ruled that Theresa Kielburger’s case against Jesse Brown and company must proceed toward trial, and that there appeared to be no credible defence for Canadaland.

Accusing a judge of being paid off for a decision is a very serious allegation. It’s false and its contempt of court. Bahen says I misinterpret her words. Yes, you could look at each of her statements as stand-alone, not connected to the others. But I don’t believe people parse things that way. To me, the clear and plain meaning of the post is obvious.

She misrepresents the judge’s motives and the decision itself, claiming he relied solely on evidence from WE’s employees. In fact, the judge referenced a letter from the Ontario Federation of Labour refuting claims made against Mrs. Kielburger and the charity that were repeated during Brown’s podcast:

“At the centre of the Plaintiff’s claim is one sentence spoken by Brown in the Canadaland podcast which is identified as crucial to the alleged libel: the statement that the Plaintiff ‘deposited hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations directly into the family’s personal bank account.’ On its face, that statement is one of fact, not opinion. If true it can be verified as true, and if false it can be exposed as false. The bank account documents and those who deposited money there will reveal the factually correct version of events.”

He continued, writing “While this is not the place for any definitive finding on the merits, the evidence in the record goes a long way toward establishing that this repetition of the Money Passage is untrue. Brown and Canadaland were aware of, but never mentioned, the accountant’s letter and the OFL’s letter that appear to disprove this allegation about where the funds were deposited.”

Charity Intelligence has deep personal and financial connections to the Conservatives and I broke the news recently that she personally donated to NDP MP Charlie Angus, a lead figure in destroying WE Charity. Bahen cannot head a supposedly unbiased and impartial charity rating agency while being a donor to the MP who did the most to destroy WE Charity. And I agree with her testimony before the standing committee examining the CSSG affair that “I find partisanship toxic.” But she doesn’t walk the walk.

We need oversight of charities. It’s a function that should be done by governments. If governments abdicate this responsibility and this work is to be done by private agencies, it better be done right.

-Mark Bourrie is a Canadian journalist, lawyer and award winning author. Mark Bourrie, PhD has been a member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery from 1994 to 2018. He previously taught media history and journalism at Concordia University. Mark is the author of 13 best-selling books including having won the RBC Taylor Prize.