Information & Ethics Committee on May 3rd, 2023

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

And yet, according to the same source, only yesterday the Prime Minister organized a meeting with a Conservative member to tell him that there were attempts at interference by a Chinese diplomat. That's probably the same source who provided the information about the Trudeau foundation, Mr. Trudeau.

[Alexandre Trudeau]

We don't really know that, Mr. Berthold.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

You can't just pick and choose the information you want.

[Alexandre Trudeau]

We don't know it, Mr. Berthold. It's all—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

The five minutes are up.

Thank you.

Mr. Bains, you have the last five minutes of this round. Go ahead, sir.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Trudeau, for joining us and adding a lot of clarity to the situation here.

As a university educator myself, I understand the value that a scholarship can have on a young person and their family. I want to ask you a little bit about that. What are the short-, medium- and long-term impacts of investing in students and their futures through scholarships that you deliver?

[Alexandre Trudeau]

Thank you, Mr. Bains. That goes to the heart of why the Trudeau foundation was created.

Our country is well served by having as many of our leaders as possible being well educated. The scholarships at the Trudeau foundation, especially the way they are joined with the mentorships and the fellowships, are aimed at having.... They're already brilliant university students when we choose them, but giving them an exposure to how ideas can percolate and move outside the university world is core to the experience of the Trudeau foundation.

As I was explaining, they were regularly exposed to round tables with senior civil servants to understand how civil servants take problems and try to digest them and then turn them into policy. With these kinds of business leaders, activists, with the courts, in many ways the foundation was trying to amplify and extend the university experience into other realms so that these scholars were empowered, even if only as university students, to be much better versed in communicating outside their departments and in engaging in the world outside. Now we're seeing that the first rounds of scholars are prominent Canadians—many in universities, some outside. Some have become mayors of towns in Canada. The experience is one of creating leaders, creating people who serve the country through and because of reason.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

They're the future leaders of the country.

How much is the average scholarship?

[Alexandre Trudeau]

I think it is a $60,000 scholarship with a $20,000 travel allowance.

The goal in the creation of the foundation was to allow university students—who, our ex-president even said, are trained to be ultra-specific—to have a range outside their departments and participate in academic events that they wouldn't otherwise be able to reach. That's part of the travel allowance.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

You've mentioned the areas of research. At the end of the day, it's important that this work continue and that the charity be able to continue to support the young people. What do you see as a path forward here?

[Alexandre Trudeau]

I would take this opportunity to put a message to them that this has nothing to do with them. This is a political crisis and a management crisis.

On the management crisis, the good news is that it's over. The foundation is already building up again and about to announce the next cohort of scholars. These people have to continue with their amazing work and why they were chosen to do this work, which has nothing to do with what we're discussing today. It has been a painful distraction to them.

That's probably the main reason that I've come here. It's not about what the foundation does. The foundation is about supporting leaders in academic research.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

To your point there, we've heard from two experts, Artur Wilczynski and Michel Juneau-Katsuya, who sort of echoed those statements, saying that if we're studying foreign interference, we need to do it in a non-partisan way.

Would you agree that it's important to investigate foreign interference in a sober and non-partisan way?

[Alexandre Trudeau]

It's more important than ever. The impact of foreign interference on our country has already been significant.

I do think China has a lot of catching up to do. It's a very internally driven country. It doesn't really understand democracies and all the rest, but the danger is certainly there. I've been hearing reports of the Russian use of social media to create doubts around vaccine use long before the pandemic. We've seen what health misinformation can do to democracies. I mean, this committee should probably meet every day, every week, every year, because the number of things....

I'm sorry to say that frankly, this is a waste of time, because there is not a foreign interference issue here at the foundation. I know that the documentary record will make that clear as it's disseminated.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

I think that's your time, Mr. Bains.

That concludes our first round.

For the record, I'm prepared to meet every day, if we have to, to get to the bottom of this.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

As we've done with other witnesses when we've had them for two hours, we will reset the clock. We'll start on our six-minute rounds to be fair to every party at this committee.

Our first six-minute intervention will go to Mr. Cooper. Go ahead, sir. You have six minutes.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Trudeau.

Let me say at the outset that your assertion that Beijing diplomats were present at meetings with the foundation in the negotiation of the donation to provide translation services to the donors is completely unbelievable. It simply is absurd.

You further stated that Millennium Golden Eagle, the source of the donation, is a Canadian company in good standing. This is a shell company based out of a house in Dorval that is controlled by the China Cultural Industry Association, which is part of the United Front Work Department. Receipts were sent to Hong Kong and then Beijing, to the very same address of this United Front Work Department-controlled company.

Do you consider this company to be one of good standing, really?

[Alexandre Trudeau]

I take the Bank of Montreal's belief in the matter quite seriously.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

I don't think any Canadian who's serious about Beijing interference would view such a company to be a company in good standing. They certainly wouldn't consider it to be a true Canadian company—

[Alexandre Trudeau]

If they had wanted to interfere, I would have seen traces of that.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Mr. Trudeau, I control the time. I ask the questions; you answer them.

Mr. Chair, changing gears, on September 10, 2015, Elise Comtois, executive director of the Trudeau foundation, sent an email to the executive committee hoping to quickly organize a signing ceremony on Monday, September 14, 2015. In that email, you were specifically mentioned to represent the foundation's board and the family. This rushed meeting of the signing ceremony with the donors just happened to coincide with a time when your brother and the Liberal Party were surging in the polls and when your brother was realistically on track to become the Prime Minister of Canada, which he did a month later.

That signing ceremony did not take place. On Friday, September 11, 2015, Natalka Harris of the Trudeau foundation emailed you to explain that there were still outstanding issues, not between the Trudeau foundation and the donors but with the University of Montreal. Nonetheless, she asked that you fly from Vancouver over the weekend to meet with the donors anyway to express appreciation for the forthcoming gift.

Did you have that meeting? Did you fly to Montreal?

[Alexandre Trudeau]

I live in Montreal, so there's an inaccuracy....

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

But you were in Vancouver at this time.

[Alexandre Trudeau]

No, I don't remember that meeting.

I remember watching that debate in September when I suddenly realized, my God, my brother's going to become Prime Minister. It was a moment I will never forget, but no, I don't remember that meeting.

I can even share the emails. The first time the Université de Montréal contacted me, there was an urgency. They wanted immediately to meet with these donors because they wanted immediately to get the money to launch a million-dollar scholarship at the Université de Montréal.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

You said that you met with Zhang in June 2014. How many times did you meet with Zhang after that?