On its face, the scandal currently embroiling Canada’s Liberal government looks like a fairly pedestrian conflict-of-interest story.

In brief: back in April, the government unveiled a new, $912-million student grant program which would pay students up to $5,000 for volunteer work. On June 26, prime minister Justin Trudeau announced that the program would be administered by WE Charity, an organization fronted by brothers Craig and Marc Kielburger. The federal government’s contract with WE was cancelled early in July amid questions about the program’s design and a potential conflict-of-interest related to connections between the charity and members of the Trudeau family. Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, the prime minister’s wife, is an official ambassador for WE, and Trudeau himself has enjoyed close ties to the organization (and its frontmen) since the beginning of his political career — addressing a 16,000-person gathering connected to WE in his first public speech after becoming prime minister.

The scandal’s scope has continued to widen thanks to further revelations that the prime minister’s mother and brother had been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees by WE — a fact which contradicts Trudeau’s June 26 statement that he had worked for the organization “voluntarily, of course . . . and I will continue to do so, as will my family.” It soon emerged that Trudeau’s finance minister Bill Morneau had received $41,000 in paid travel and hospitality from WE Charity — funds Morneau, who is personally wealthy, claims he forgot to reimburse (one of Morneau’s daughters, in addition, has a job with the organization and another’s 2016 book got an effusive blurb from Marc Kielburger). Other figures close to the prime minister, including his chief of staff and natural resources minister Seamus O’Regan, also have well-established ties to WE and both Kielburger brothers have made political contributions to the Liberal Party (Marc to the party and Craig to Trudeau’s ultimately successful 2012 leadership campaign).