Evidence of meeting #70 for Public Accounts in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was rosenberg.
A video is available from Parliament.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
You haven't been speaking to current board members about this allegation.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Okay.
During your tenure, sir, there was some questionable activity surrounding your dismissal. Was this in relation to how poorly you handled this complaint?
11:45 a.m.
As an Individual
I addressed this at the other committee, so let me talk about this for a second, if you don't mind, because this really goes to my reputation. There was an intimation at the committee that I was fired. The chair of the other committee asked Madame Fournier whether I was fired. She said, gee, I don't know. I would suggest that she knows very well.
Here's what happened. I had a four-year contract with the foundation that ended in 2018. I lived in Ottawa and was commuting back and forth. In April 2017, more than a year before I was supposed to leave, I told the chair that I did not want to renew my contract. I had very good evaluations all through, and I gave him more than a year's notice because I wanted the foundation to have the opportunity to have a proper process to find a successor, which they did, and they found Madame Fournier to be the successor.
Madame Fournier and I then had an opportunity of overlap for several weeks, to get her accustomed to the foundation. I was absolutely not fired. There was a very nice going-away party for me, a very nice gift that I got from some of the directors—
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Mr. Rosenberg, I appreciate the answer, and I'm sure we'll come back to this.
I'm going to turn now to Ms. Yip.
You have the floor for five minutes.
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Thank you, Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses for coming.
Mr. Rosenberg, did you want to finish any thoughts on the previous question?
11:45 a.m.
As an Individual
I appreciate your asking, because sometimes there are questions that come right at the end and I can't actually finish answering.
I was not fired from the foundation. That is absolutely false. I chose the timing of my departure, and I tried to be as decent about it as I possibly could.
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
In your opening statement, you seemed to mention that there was a donation in question that we're all talking about. It seemed positive, the intention, to really foster a relationship with the Canadian government, which was the Harper government at that time, through supporting post-secondary studies. Could you provide any comment on that, and could you provide that letter that you mentioned you would be able to give us?
11:45 a.m.
As an Individual
Yes, I will provide a copy of the letter. I don't know what the procedure is in this committee—in the other committee I wasn't allowed to provide paper—but I will.
The letter came off the website of the China Cultural Industry Association. If you go to the website, you will find a lot of information. There are a whole bunch of congratulatory letters from people all over the world, but including a number of people in Canada—from the Government of Quebec, for example, and others. I don't have a full list of them here. They were well known and I don't deny that they had links with the government in China. However, I think everybody understood that we were dealing with a Chinese Communist government.
From what I understand, whether it was Chinese state-owned corporations like CNOOC, which purchased Nexen Energy for $15 billion—that's not an independent private corporation, that is a corporation controlled by the Communist Party in China—everybody had their eyes open to doing business with China. However, we all felt back then that it was worth the trouble, given that China was the rising superpower in the world.
I think slowly—and it was slowly—we started to realize that this relationship was very difficult. You started to see, in the mid-2010s, intellectual property theft, dual-use research that was being done, and questions about whether universities were being diligent enough in looking at these things. At the same time, we were still doing cultural things with China, even as late as 2017.
I found an article in University Affairs by the rector at the University of Ottawa, saying everybody should be doing research with China. In 2015, you had UBC announcing a major research project with China.
The penny really dropped for us with the hostage-taking of the two Michaels, and then we realized, boy, we're in a different world. With the wolf warrior diplomacy, the way these people are treating the Uyghurs, the way they're dealing with Hong Kong, this is not what we thought we were dealing with. I think it changed our perception.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Diaspora communities are unfairly stigmatized as a result of this debate, as people conflate Chinese Canadians and the PRC.
What can we do to make a clear distinction...and ensure that we are protecting all Canadians?
11:50 a.m.
As an Individual
I agree that this is a problem.
First of all, there has to be an opportunity for these people to be able to tell their story. Whatever process comes out of these negotiations among the parties, I really hope that diaspora communities are given a voice. I know there's an association of people from Hong Kong who have been very vocal.
However, it's also true with respect to Iranian citizens and perhaps Indian citizens, and even expat Russians. Anybody who has family left behind in an authoritarian state may be vulnerable to harassment because of what can be done to their families. These things need to be understood and looked at.
We also want to find ways of protecting them. We protect them by being perhaps a bit more proactive than we have been, on the issue, say, of the Chinese police stations. Now the government has started to do that and started to expel them and expel some of the diplomats. We have to stand up for ourselves.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
I'd like to ask all of you, during your time at the foundation, were donations received from any other foreign countries, and how was that handled?
11:50 a.m.
As an Individual
I don't think any of my fellow witnesses were at the foundation, so maybe I'll answer the question.
Well, there were other.... First of all, this was not a foreign donation, although we have a debate about that. The biggest foreign donation was from the chair of the foundation, John McCall MacBain, who is a Canadian living in Geneva. His foundation is a Swiss-based foundation. There were some other smaller donations, but nothing at all of this magnitude. Certainly, there were no other Chinese—
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Thank you.
I'm going to leave it there, because you answered the question and the time has expired. It's something that we can come back to.
Go ahead, Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné. You have two and a half minutes.
11:50 a.m.
Bloc
Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné Bloc Terrebonne, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to follow up on my earlier questions.
There's a major discrepancy between your testimony and Ms. Fournier's. At least you acknowledge that, which is a first step.
Ms. Fournier stated that people based in China and foundation staff were in contact regarding the information that should appear on the tax receipts. Did you know that?
11:50 a.m.
As an Individual
Yes, I did, because some of the documents in the 160 pages provide—
11:50 a.m.
Bloc
Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné Bloc Terrebonne, QC
You were the president and CEO, but you didn't know that your employees were taking instructions from Beijing.
11:50 a.m.
As an Individual
No, I didn't know. As I said, the foundation had people who were responsible for handling the whole donation and receipt process. From my standpoint, we didn't have those discussions. In fact, it's clear from the documents that I wasn't even copied on the emails.
11:50 a.m.
Bloc
Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné Bloc Terrebonne, QC
Usually, you should know what your staff are doing. That's CEO leadership 101.
When there was—
11:50 a.m.
As an Individual
I relied on my employees to carry out their role in the foundation. As the CEO of an organization that doesn't necessarily have a large staff and who has a huge workload, you have to decide where to focus your energy, so you rely on your employees.
