Information & Ethics Committee on May 9th, 2023

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

So you're always going to side with the Trudeau family in your responses.

You asked to testify here, you came unprepared, and you are unable to tell us anything about the cheques and receipts. It is obvious that you are currently protecting someone or something. I don't know who it is or what it is, but it is unthinkable, incomprehensible, and most importantly, unacceptable that you were not better prepared for your appearance here. You knew we were going to ask you questions about the receipts and the cheques, and as chair of the foundation, you didn't ask anyone there to get those answers. Why didn't you want to know anything?

[Edward Johnson]

We proceeded in the right way and I am satisfied with that.

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

Isn't it rather that you didn't ask the questions because you didn't want to have to answer them in front of the committee members?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Mr. Berthold, let me stop you for a moment.

Mr. Fergus, you have a point of order.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I believe, sir, that it would be appropriate to allow our guest here to be able to answer a number of questions, because there were a number of questions that were asked. I think he should be given an opportunity to do so. He was trying to do so in his second language. I don't know if there's a possibility for him to answer the questions before a new series of questions is asked.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Fergus.

Mr. Berthold, I had stopped the clock. If you ask the witness a question, you must indeed wait for him to answer it. You have the floor.

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

Mr. Johnson, you have worked in political offices and mentored many political campaigns, as reported by several witnesses. Given all the experience you have in politics, do you admit that no one wanted to influence the Trudeau Foundation? Do you admit that it was rather the politician Trudeau, now Prime Minister, who was the target of the Beijing regime, according to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service report?

With all your experience in politics, can you at least admit that the foundation may have been a target for a regime wishing to influence members of the Trudeau family and the Liberal family?

[Edward Johnson]

I have seen no evidence that would support that. Based on the evidence that's in the public domain, I'm very skeptical of that being the motive behind this donation. It should be borne in mind that the same donor made, a year or two earlier, a donation to the University of Toronto of $800,000 to honour Norman Bethune, a Canadian who had a role in China. Then he comes back to Université de Montréal with another $1 million honouring another Canadian who was instrumental in developing relations with China.

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

I see you do know some of the details, Mr. Johnson.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Berthold.

For the benefit of the committee, because of the disruptions that we've had today, I've made a decision to push off committee business. I've talked to the clerk. We can do that on Friday. We're going to continue for as long as we can up to six o'clock.

Mr. Bains, you have five minutes. Go ahead, sir.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Johnson, for joining us today.

During Mr. Rosenberg's appearance on May 2, he said that the gift in question was intended for lectures to be delivered in collaboration with Université de Montréal.

Why did the donation go unused by the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation between 2016 and 2023?

[Edward Johnson]

I don't know. The explanation that was given to me—I have this second-hand—is that once the original news articles appeared in, I think, 2016 or 2017, raising questions about whether this might have been intended for some kind of political influence, neither the donor nor the foundation management pursued the notion of the seminars originally intended and originally discussed in what I'm told was the run-up to the donation. To the best of my knowledge, there was no effort from the donor to ask for something else to be done.

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

Thank you.

The foundation board is made up of independent members, ISED appointees, and members of the Pierre Trudeau estate. What's the interplay between the three types of board members?

[Edward Johnson]

They all work together. There have been no government members for a number of years on the board. We are left with the regular members, which I believe are 14, and two family members named by the family. The interplay among them and between them is.... There is no distinction.

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

Can you confirm that the independent members of the board control the majority of the board?

[Edward Johnson]

Do you mean the non-family members?

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

The independent members of the board, so non-family or whoever the independent members are.

[Edward Johnson]

Non-family and non-government members absolutely control the board.

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

Okay.

In our last committee meeting, Mr. Trudeau said that the board had a consensus to create an independent committee. Was this the case?

[Edward Johnson]

No. The consensus went the other way. At the March 31 board meeting where this was discussed, I had recommended the creation of the independent committee. The board, however, some directors, said they thought it would be better if the outside review were to report to the full board. That was the way it was left at the end of that meeting. That was the unanimous view.

During the subsequent week, a rear guard view began to emerge of should we be doing this with the full board, and isn't it more appropriate that it be reporting to an independent committee of three—three so-called independents—who were not involved in any way with the foundation from 2014-17?

Two board members wrote to the board, one after the other, proposing that idea and proposing that the board revert to that. I then wrote a subsequent memo, which I referred to in my opening remarks and which I have passed to the clerk, saying that I felt there was a consensus emerging around the idea of.... There was a consensus emerging in the other memos from other directors who were themselves uninvolved and independent from the China events, and that we might consider moving forward on the basis of that consensus.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

You have two seconds, Mr. Bains.

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

That's okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Bains.

I'm sticking to the time.

We're going to conclude with Mr. Brock for five minutes, Mr. Fergus for five minutes, and then we're going to go to Monsieur Villemure and Mr. Green for two and a half minutes, and that'll take us to the end.

Go ahead, Mr. Brock.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for your attendance, Mr. Johnson.

I understand that you bring to your testimony today a significant history in the political field, the legal field and the governance field, as well as a significant period of time on the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation.

I'm actually shocked, unbelievably shocked, that you came before this committee. You've indicated in previous statements that you wanted an opportunity to correct some of the factual discrepancies in Ms. Fournier's statement. You wanted an opportunity to rebut many of those statements.

I'm really gobsmacked, sir, that you are unable to answer basic questions with respect to the refund of this donation. You are the chairman of this particular organization, managing $125 million in taxpayer-funded money. You had to have known that one of the questions put to you, sir, would be in relation to the donation and the refund.

I want to go to those questions and that line a bit more in detail.

You are unable to tell me...because you were not responsible for issuing the cheque to return to a particular donor of the $140 million. Is that correct?

[Edward Johnson]

That's correct.