The former CEO of the Trudeau Foundation who was at the helm when Chinese regime-backed entities made a donation says the fund could in no way have influenced the Canadian government.
“The donation bought no influence and we never thought that a $200,000 donation would influence any government,” said Morris Rosenberg on June 12 as he testified before the House of Commons public accounts committee.
“I think there’s a very innocent set of explanations for everything that went on in relation to this donation.”
Focus on the 2016 donation to the foundation resurfaced in late February when the Globe and Mail reported that, according to leaked Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) information, the Chinese regime made a donation to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation in a bid to influence Justin Trudeau who had recently become the leader of the Liberal Party.
CSIS reportedly intercepted a 2014 call between a Chinese consulate official in Canada and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) advisor and businessman Zhang Bin about the scheme.
Rosenberg, a former senior public servant who headed the foundation from 2014 to 2018, testified before the House ethics committee on May 2 where he downplayed the Chinese links to the donation.
“This is not a foreign donation,” Rosenberg said, referring to the donating entity Millennium Golden Eagle Canada located in Dorval, Quebec.
Speaking before the public accounts committee for its study on the Trudeau Foundation, Rosenberg again downplayed the Chinese connection.
Conservative MPs have called Millennium Golden Eagle a “shell company” and Rosenberg said this wasn’t the case based on his research. He said that corporate records in Quebec indicate the company is involved in the business of hotels and realty property investments.
Records indicate the company employs between 1 and 5 individuals in Quebec and lists the first majority shareholder as Beijing Millennium Golden Eagle International Media Co. The company’s address is listed as 4th floor No. 9 in the International Center Building on Shouti St., Haidian District of Beijing, China, postal code 100044.
This is exactly the same address as the China Cultural Industry Association (CCIA), a CCP-backed body that Rosenberg described as a “soft power organization” in his May testimony.
Soft power is described as a set of tactics used by states to influence and leverage other countries without resorting to hard power or military force.
Zhang Bin is the owner of Millennium in Canada and China and the president of the CCIA. The other businessman tied to the donation, Niu Gensheng, is a CCIA advisor. Their names were used by the foundation in its annual report and in public events instead of the donating entity Millennium or its state-affiliated body the CCIA.
Before donating to the Université de Montréal (UdeM), their names were associated with a $800,000 donation to the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Toronto in 2013.
Rosenberg also said that the Canadian government apparently was aware of the men’s affiliation with the CCIA at the time. He pointed to a letter issued by Canada’s ambassador to China, thanking the CCIA for a donation made to the U of T, publicly attributed to Zhang Bin and Niu Gensheng.
However, he didn’t address how this relates to the main concerns over the prospect of intending to influence Justin Trudeau through the Trudeau Foundation, the main source of controversy raised by the opposition.
The Epoch Times’ efforts to reach Zhang or his entities have been to no avail.
CCIA Links
Rosenberg acknowledged the issue of CCIA’s influence but said the donation should be perceived in the context of the time when there was greater openness towards China.“Looking back do you think you were just naive, perhaps willfully, willfully blind to this?” asked Conservative MP Kelly McCauley.
“I don’t think so,” Rosenberg replied.
“There was a ceremony and it was unusual to have a ceremony, but it was the University of Montreal who wanted to have the ceremony, and we decided that Alexandre Trudeau would be appropriate to be there,“ he added. ”It was just a slightly different way of doing things.”
Alexandre Trudeau, the prime minister’s brother, had taken the unique step of signing for that deal. “The main reason I signed is that Morris [Rosenberg] asked me to,” he said on May 3 before the ethics committee. “It was in that capacity as a family member giving the permission to use the name.”
The prominent role played by Alexandre Trudeau in the donation is something that left some of the foundation’s board members feeling uneasy, most of whom resigned in April over how a review on the matter would be handled.
One of them, Dr. Dyane Adam, told the ethics committee on June 2 that she found it strange Alexandre Trudeau signed that donation, “because normally—according to the policy—it would have been the CFO who should have done that.”
“Let’s say it was too close for comfort, in the sense that already we had the name of Trudeau in our foundation, even though it’s public funds, even though this foundation is not partisan.”
Alexandre Trudeau, involved in the foundation’s affairs since its inception, has cast doubt on the reliability of the Globe and Mail’s reporting that said Beijing sought to give $1 million to the foundation, which turned out to be inaccurate.
Most of the money was destined for the UdeM where Pierre Elliott Trudeau studied and taught, to honour his opening of diplomatic relations with Beijing. The deal was for the university to receive $800,000 and the foundation $200,000.
Access
Conservatives have raised concerns that some of the donors to the Trudeau Foundation also had face time with the prime minister.“Were you aware that those donors had attended a cash-for-access Liberal fundraiser?” asked Conservative MP Garnett Genuis in the June 12 committee meeting.
“I had no idea,” said Rosenberg.
“Would it have given you pause if you had known?” followed Genuis.
“Maybe,” replied Rosenberg.
Zhang and Niu met with cabinet ministers on several occasions. The signing ceremony for the donations took place in June 2016, but the deal had been in the works since 2014.
Zhang attended a cash-for-access Liberal fundraiser in May 2016 where Trudeau was the guest of honour. Niu Gensheng met with Trudeau and other ministers during a visit to Canada by the China Entrepreneur Club in October 2016.
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly met with Zhang in Beijing in 2018 when she was in charge of the Heritage portfolio, as part of an event organized by the CCIA and the Canada-China Business Council.
Trouble at the Foundation
The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation was established in the early 2000s to honour the memory of the late prime minister. The federal government provided it with a $125 million endowment to run mentorship and scholarship programs.After the Globe broke its story on the Chinese donation, an internal governance crisis ensued and efforts were made to return the donation. Current chair Edward Johnson said on May 9 the donation had been returned, $140,000 in total, given the last tranche of the $200,000 was never provided.
Disagreements between then-CEO Pascale Fournier and some board members on one side and other legacy board members and Trudeau family friends on the other on how to manage a review into the donation, led to the board dissolving in April.
Former directors have been testifying before House committee meetings in recent weeks, providing widely divergent accounts of what led to the governance crisis.
Dr. Ginger Gibson and Dr. Adam said on June 2 that a motion had been introduced asking Johnson, Bruce McNiven, and Peter Sahlas to recuse themselves from the process given they were with the foundation when the donation was received. Gibson and Adam said the three men refused.
Johnson told the public accounts committee that “at no point was there a motion for any directors to recuse themselves, nor was there any refusal to do so by any director.”
Johnson announced an independent review of the donation in mid-April after the dissolution of the board.
