Recommendations in a Commons committee report on the WE Charity scandal to safeguard against secret lobbying and conflicts of interest in government spending fall short, says the co-founder of a government accountability watchdog group. “Essentially, even if the recommendations of the committee were put in place, secret lobbying would still be legal,” Democracy Watch co-founder Duff Conacher told The Epoch Times. “It’s not a bad report. It’s just not strong enough to actually stop this stuff from happening again. You need to address secret lobbying.” The WE Charity scandal erupted in June 2020 over the Liberal government’s deal to pay the organization up to $43.5 million to administer the now-defunct $912 million Canada Student Service Grant (CSSG) program, designed to cover up to $5,000 in education costs for students who volunteered during the COVID-19 pandemic. The announcement ignited controversy because of the close ties between WE founders Craig and Marc Kielburger, …