Dirty slush surrounding the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation continues to pile up over a controversial $200,000 Chinese donation.
On Friday, the foundation’s former CEO, Pascale Fournier, who left the foundation with other board members a few weeks ago during an internal crisis, testified before the House of Commons ethics committee that her predecessor “misled” the public by claiming its origin was Canadian and not Chinese.
As reported by the Epoch Times, she noted a statement her predecessor Morris Rosenberg had given to the National Post in 2016 regarding the $200,000 donation promised by Chinese businessmen Zhang Bin and Niu Gensheng.
The Post article paraphrased Rosenberg as saying the foundation does not count the donation as being foreign since it was made by a company registered in Canada.
“This was a declaration on behalf of the foundation to say that it was not foreign, that it was Canadian money. This was in the annual report as well, when in fact, the tax receipt itself mentioned China,” said Fournier, a law professor of law at the University of Ottawa.
“I think this is something that is misleading to Canadians.”
Zhang Bin and Niu Gensheng, both formally associated with the Chinese regime-backed China Cultural Industry Association (CCIA), had promised to give a total of $1 million to the foundation and the Université de Montréal in 2014, in honour of former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
The issue surfaced in the news in 2016 a few months after the donation ceremony, when the Globe and Mail reported that Zhang Bin had attended a cash-for-access Liberal Party fundraiser where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was the guest of honour.
Of the $200,000 promised to the foundation, in the end only $140,000 was provided in two instalments.
But the reality doesn’t quite match what was publicly announced by the donation’s beneficiaries.
Fournier explained that the two charitable receipts had been signed by Rosenberg, with the one for the first instalment of 2016 mentioning an address in China. It was also not in the name of either announced donor, but on behalf of the company Millennium Golden Eagle, which is owned by Zhang Bin.
The receipt for the second instalment provided in 2017 was for the same company, but this time with an address in Quebec, said Fournier.
“I immediately started to ask questions about why is it that we would have two receipts that are so different that one seems to be international with money that seems to come from China, and another one with an address in Quebec?” she said.
Fournier’s inquiries about the donation started after the Globe reported on Feb. 28 that it was the Chinese regime that directed Zhang Bin to give money to the Trudeau Foundation, in a potential foreign influence scheme.
When Fournier started investigating internally what had transpired, she found out through reviewing emails that the CCIA was in direct communication with foundation employees, telling them what to specifically write on the donation receipts.
She said that based on what she saw, there was no direct link between the donors and the foundation. “The link was really between this (Chinese-regime-backed) association (CCIA) and the foundation.”
“Is it fair to say that the association was an extension of the People’s Republic of China, the government?” asked NDP MP Matthew Green.
“I think there was a very strong proximity. I don’t know if I would say extension, but it was clearly under the guidance of the (Communist) government,” said Fournier.
