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But in Canada, WE Day will be over, their school programs will go online only and their real estate in Toronto will be sold off. In their 2018 statement to the Canada Revenue Agency, WE stated that they held $43.7 million worth of real estate in Canada. A related charity, Imagine 1 Day International owns roughly $3 million worth of real estate in the same block while the ME to WE Foundation owns more than $4 million.
The private business owned primarily by the Kielburger brothers owns close $9 million worth of real estate in that same neighbourhood just east of Toronto’s downtown core.
All of that real estate, and their plans for redevelopment, are now up in the air.
What will happen to the land owned by WE or affiliated organizations such as the luxury ME to WE?
In an interview with CTV’s Lisa LaFlamme, the brothers say they will set up an endowment with the funds from the sale to continue to fund operations in countries they have long been active in such as Kenya and Ecuador.
“The simple math is now the charity is spending more than it’s bringing in,” Craig Kielburger told LaFlamme.
As for the scandal that the charity became involved in, Kielburger called it a “political freight train” that hit the organization.
That freight train was set in motion at the end of June when Prime Minister Trudeau announced that WE Charity would administer the Canada Student Service Grant, a program the government said could cost as much as $912 million. WE was selected without going through a competitive process and stood to take in more than $43 million in administration fees.
