Divided WE fall: Policy capture and failure of the Canada Student Service Grant during COVID-19

As part of its package of COVID-19 economic supports for students, the Government of Canada announced the Canada Student Service Grant (CSSG) in April 2020 which quickly became a major ethical and political scandal. The CSSG is remarkable not only for its spectacular failure but because it is a rare case of capture by a charity of a signature government program. This paper uses process tracing to examine how WE, a celebrity charity-social enterprise conglomerate, used its status to manage their reputation and facilitate capture. Conclusions inform how the government-nonprofit relationship can be improved in Canada.