Evidence of meeting #68 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was foundation.
A video is available from Parliament.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Mr. David Johnston was a member of the Trudeau Foundation. Is that correct?
5:20 p.m.
Author of the Report on the assessment of the 2021 Critical Election Incident Public Protocol and former President and CEO of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, As an Individual
He was a member of the Trudeau Foundation, yes.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Would you not do a political risk analysis as a former DM and say this also complicates the relationship with—
5:20 p.m.
Author of the Report on the assessment of the 2021 Critical Election Incident Public Protocol and former President and CEO of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, As an Individual
I was non-partisan as a deputy, and I don't think I'm going to wade into whether.... I have enormous respect for Mr. Johnston.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Let me put this to you in a very direct way.
Given the insinuations that have been put here.... Quite frankly, I am unconvinced at this moment that this is simply a matter of governance. It's very difficult for me to unpack what's been presented by your testimony and Ms. Fournier's.
Could you not contemplate that this particular situation would also be included in an investigation of foreign interference given the allegations?
5:20 p.m.
Author of the Report on the assessment of the 2021 Critical Election Incident Public Protocol and former President and CEO of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, As an Individual
I guess somebody would have to look at what the appropriate mandate for that is. I will tell you, whatever happens, whether it's a public inquiry, parliamentary committee, NSICOP or whatever, it will have to have a focused mandate on this. Otherwise, it's just not going to be worth anything.
The other thing I would say is that I really hope that the focus on what happened in the 2021 and 2019 elections doesn't take away from people thinking about what's happening right now as we go forward.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I'm going to intervene.
Mr. Zhang is a Chinese citizen. Is that correct?
5:20 p.m.
Author of the Report on the assessment of the 2021 Critical Election Incident Public Protocol and former President and CEO of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, As an Individual
As far as I know, yes.
5:20 p.m.
Author of the Report on the assessment of the 2021 Critical Election Incident Public Protocol and former President and CEO of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, As an Individual
No. I believe he's a Chinese citizen, yes.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
You are somebody who's prided yourself in your testimony as being someone who provides the government with advice on protocols. However, in her testimony Ms. Fournier painted a very different picture of the governance of the Trudeau Foundation.
One thing that I've had trouble reconciling, given my experience with a local foundation and the high level of diligence that was presented by a community foundation, is the lack of due diligence, quite frankly, at the Trudeau Foundation. You have all of these subject matter experts around the table at the board. Nobody's raising issues. Nobody—in her testimony—is recusing themselves from the perception of conflict of interest.
Can you just state for the record and perhaps respond to some of those allegations? What was the state of the governance of the Trudeau Foundation under your leadership?
5:25 p.m.
Author of the Report on the assessment of the 2021 Critical Election Incident Public Protocol and former President and CEO of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, As an Individual
I think the state of the governance was pretty good under my leadership.
5:25 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Did you have, in retrospect, the appropriate protocols in place to deal with the political sensitivity of running a foundation on the former prime minister's name, while his son is the current Prime Minister and the Prime Minister's brother is on the board?
5:25 p.m.
Author of the Report on the assessment of the 2021 Critical Election Incident Public Protocol and former President and CEO of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, As an Individual
The first thing that was done was that he stopped being active before I came on the scene.
5:25 p.m.
Author of the Report on the assessment of the 2021 Critical Election Incident Public Protocol and former President and CEO of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, As an Individual
His name...with an asterisk.
5:25 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Do you think that Mr. Zhang Bin would have provided a million-dollar donation after the 2016 pay-for-access Liberal fundraiser dinner? Do you think he would have done that if the foundation's last name was Smith?
5:25 p.m.
Author of the Report on the assessment of the 2021 Critical Election Incident Public Protocol and former President and CEO of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, As an Individual
First of all, they provided us with $200,000, not a million dollars.
I just want to say one other thing about what was provided and the whole issue of influence.
Mr. Lefebvre actually talked about this in an article that he wrote. Back then, it's not that we were naive that we were dealing with people who were linked to the Chinese government, because just about everybody was. What we were naive about was that we actually believed by dealing with them that we would have a soft-power influence on them. I'm telling you—
5:25 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
That's the mistake of every western country that thinks it's going to have soft power over China, sir.
5:25 p.m.
Author of the Report on the assessment of the 2021 Critical Election Incident Public Protocol and former President and CEO of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, As an Individual
That's where we were.
5:25 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
You were the former DM to foreign affairs.
Respectfully, I've been pretty neutral until that comment. That has a level of hubris, I think, which is the challenge that this foundation is facing, quite frankly. That has gotten us into this mess.
I want to dial in on the $200,000 donation. I thought a subsequent larger offer was presented and then rejected. I may have recollected it incorrectly.
In her testimony to this committee, Ms. Fournier stated that you had not asked to receive the remaining $60,000 of the donation, which was due on July 1, 2018. Why did you not take the rest of the money?
5:25 p.m.
Author of the Report on the assessment of the 2021 Critical Election Incident Public Protocol and former President and CEO of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, As an Individual
I don't recall. I was just about out the door on July 1, 2018.
5:25 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
You don't recall why you....
Just so that we're clear, your records indicate that, in subsequent years, your average donation of total donations was $25,000. This was an outlier donation. You are an endowment that is not dependent on donations.
You took $200,000, and then didn't take the last payment. You would have been the one to make the decision not to take the last payment. Why?
5:25 p.m.
Author of the Report on the assessment of the 2021 Critical Election Incident Public Protocol and former President and CEO of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, As an Individual
I don't recall at the moment why.
I would say this. Given all the publicity around the donation in The Globe and Mail, we had to put off the conferences that we were going to have.
5:25 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
This is my last question.
With that scrutiny, did you enact any type of investigation after that?