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.
12:35 p.m.
As an Individual
I don't think we ever got a donation that would have tested that.
The biggest donation we ever got was from the McCall MacBain Foundation. As I said, John McCall MacBain, who is probably one of the leading philanthropists in Canada, gave $200 million to McGill, gave $100 million to Oxford and gave us $3 million. That's by far, many orders of magnitude bigger than anything else we'd ever gotten.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Kram Conservative Regina—Wascana, SK
Okay. Do you know what the limits are for donating to a politician's election campaign?
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Kram Conservative Regina—Wascana, SK
It's less than $2,000 in this country, so I'm a bit surprised that you could imply that $200,000 would not be significant enough to buy influence in the Canadian political system, given that when the MPs around this table are running for re-election we cannot accept.... It's actually less than $2,000.
It's troubling that these checks and balances would not be in place for the Trudeau Foundation.
12:35 p.m.
As an Individual
It's kind of apples and oranges, though, isn't it? There are individual campaign contribution limits for people running for office. Two hundred thousand dollars to the Trudeau Foundation on a base endowment of $125 million that was growing was not that big a deal.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Kram Conservative Regina—Wascana, SK
Okay, but if someone wants to donate $200,000 to Justin Trudeau's election campaign and soon finds out that the contribution limits are less than $2,000, I think it would be pretty reasonable for someone to go to Google and say, “Well, what else can I donate to that has the same last name as the Prime Minister that could be used to purchase influence?” Wouldn't you agree that the Trudeau Foundation would come up pretty quickly on a Google search?
12:40 p.m.
As an Individual
Honestly, I don't think so. I mean, I really don't think that the $200,000 was going to buy either influence with us, for all of the reasons I've said, or influence with the government. If you want to look at influence with the government, look at some of the other bigger deals. Fifteen billion dollars...and I don't mean to pick on the Harper government, but there were these deals that were done—
12:40 p.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
12:40 p.m.
An hon. member
It's just a coincidence.
12:40 p.m.
As an Individual
Well, these are facts, okay? If you want to talk about—
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Just wait one second, Mr. Rosenberg. I have a point of order.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON
Chair, the witness is simply trying to finish his statement. Can you allow him to do that, in the interests of decorum?
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
That's what I'm attempting to do.
Mr. Rosenberg, you have the floor. There are 40 seconds left.
12:40 p.m.
As an Individual
There's so much politicization on this issue. Some of you guys talk about the Beijing-funded Trudeau Foundation. It's actually not the Beijing-funded Trudeau Foundation.
I could say the Beijing-funded deal to buy Nexen. I don't know. I honestly don't think that $200,000 dollars is very significant in the greater scheme of things.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Kram Conservative Regina—Wascana, SK
I'll just wrap up a couple of things very quickly.
Prior to his becoming Prime Minister, there was the ongoing issue of Justin Trudeau's speaking fees at different charitable events.
Did the Trudeau Foundation ever pay Justin Trudeau a speaking fee to speak at an event?
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
That is the time, I'm afraid.
We turn now to Mr. Sidhu online.
You have the floor for five minutes. Go ahead, please.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC
Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Mr. Sidhu.
I'd like to come back to a statement you made earlier, Mr. Rosenberg, concerning worrying signs of China's intentions in the 2010s.
Can you expand on that?
12:40 p.m.
As an Individual
Yes. I'll try to, a little.
People may remember back to 2010, actually, when the former head of CSIS made some statements about foreign influence. Some of that may have been Chinese influence. It created a bit of a hue and cry. Certainly, the Liberals, who were in opposition at that time, were very unhappy about that. I think they even had Mr. Fadden at committee. Mr. Fadden didn't apologize for those statements. I think time has proved that he was right. I think the government of the day did apologize for Mr. Fadden. Mr. Fadden happily went on to have a very good career. He's very, very astute on matters of national security.
At that time, I don't think anybody or enough people were taking it that seriously. Subsequently there were things like this letter to the China Cultural Industry Association. They were doing a lot of PR, not just in Canada but all over the world. We were in a period of warming relations with China. Then a number of things started to happen. I think people started to realize that they were not playing fair. They were in the World Trade Organization, but they were actually using every loophole to their advantage.
Trade with China is not necessarily fair trade. There was criticism of some of the agreements that were entered into with China and concern, for example, that a customs agreement would have given them too much commercially sensitive information if they were interested in appropriating some of our information.
I think during the initial period, the concerns were more on the commercial side, the economic side, and on the dual use of technology side. With respect to the potential military uses of technology, on which you had Canadian universities working in collaboration with Chinese researchers, it took a while for us to get there. I think it's only fairly recently that universities have changed their policies on these things, with the encouragement of the granting councils.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC
Mr. Rosenberg, how would you characterize the response of the government at the time? Would you say that Prime Minister Harper at the time was being naive?
12:40 p.m.
As an Individual
No. Just to prove I'm not biased, I think everybody at that time was working in what they thought were Canada's best interests. The whole world was courting China whether businesses, academic institutions or governments, so when the Government of Canada entered into a customs agreement and a foreign investment protection agreement with China, it thought it was working in the best interests of Canada. When the ambassador wrote a letter to this cultural organization, he thought he was working in the best interests of Canada.
Were we naive? I don't know.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC
Thank you for that.
I would like to turn to Mr. Jean.
Mr. Jean, you were a national security adviser. Can you talk about that time and the evolution of the Canadian response?
