Information & Ethics Committee on May 2nd, 2023

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Villemure.

Mr. Green, you are up next for six minutes. Go ahead, sir.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Rosenberg, I'm going to put a series of questions to you in a rather rapid way. It's not personal. I may interject, take my time back and move on to the next question. I'm going to ask you to try to be as concise as you can.

In 2016, in a National Post article, you stated that the $200,000 donation was not considered a foreign donation because it was made by a company registered in Canada. However, you issued a tax receipt for a company with a Chinese address. Were they the same company?

[Morris Rosenberg]

The tax receipt was issued to the company. The Chinese address, as far as I understand, was the address of Mr. Zhang Bin, who was, I believe, president of the company, or certainly a director of the company, as the document shows.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Was it a personal address or a corporate address?

[Morris Rosenberg]

I don't know. I'm not sure which address it is, but I will say this: There are letters in here from—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I will take the letters under consideration when they're submitted.

[Morris Rosenberg]

Okay. They're actually emails. Sorry.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I'll take the emails as well.

Do you believe that the donor on the tax receipt was the true donor of the $200,000?

[Morris Rosenberg]

As far as I know, yes.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

In our last committee meeting, an article from La Presse was referenced that stated that in 2016 a board member made a senior staff member aware that the real donor was not the same donor as on the tax receipt. In her testimony, Pascale Fournier stated that the board member in question was Farah Mohamed.

In 2016, you were made aware that the real donor was not listed on the tax receipt.

[Morris Rosenberg]

I'm sorry. I was listening on Friday, and I thought that conversation took place not in 2016 but in the past few weeks. I'm not sure.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Were you aware at that time? Were you made aware by Farah Mohamed on the board that it wasn't the same person?

[Morris Rosenberg]

No. As far as I'm concerned, the donation was made by the company that's here, registered in Dorval. I had no reason to think it was anybody else.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

You sent it to China.

[Morris Rosenberg]

That's where Mr. Zhang's address was.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Did you conduct any type of audit—with any type of eyes-wide-open approach—or a risk assessment with regard to sending a tax receipt to a foreign company or to a foreign location?

[Morris Rosenberg]

No, because the only company that could use the tax receipt would be the Canadian company to which it was issued.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

In her testimony to the committee, Pascale Fournier stated that the 2016 receipt that was issued by the foundation and signed off on by you did not include the names of the two donors who were mentioned in the contract and included the address in China.

Did the foundation have any policies on those types of discrepancies?

[Morris Rosenberg]

I don't believe it had any policies on that particularly. I think the policy was that the tax receipt should be issued to the entity—either an individual or a corporation—that makes the donation, and that's what we did.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Did what you signed off on include the name of the two donors?

[Morris Rosenberg]

I don't remember.

As far as I can tell, we signed off on.... There's one tax receipt in the package to the Millennium corporation, the one in Dorval. The names of the donors aren't on there. There was an issue around what the correct address was.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Were the donors board members of Millennium Golden Eagle?

[Morris Rosenberg]

Mr. Zhang was a board member of Millennium.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Was the other?

[Morris Rosenberg]

No.