Public Accounts Committee on June 12th, 2023

[Daniel Jean, As an Individual]

I'm happy to do so, and I think I can add some interesting facts.

For example, in 2012, we signed the Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement with China. We did not ratify it until 2014. It was not a major controversy when it was ratified. Some of the reasons it wasn't ratified for two years were environmental and labour concerns, but there was also the whole concern around state-owned enterprises. When we go back to the Nexen deal, you have to remember that it forced us to come up with a policy.

In 2014, China—and we attributed it to China—attacked the National Research Council. A couple of months later, they were arresting two Canadians in a very arbitrary way, Kevin and Julia Garratt. They were detained for several months.

Several months later, Prime Minister Harper went to China. He worked on announcing the economic thing, but at the same time, he had the tough conversations about some of the things we didn't like about China. To go back to the NRC cyber-attack, remember that we attributed it to China the day before Minister John Baird was meeting with his counterpart in Beijing.

This evolution that Mr. Rosenberg described is very much so. It's not that they were naive or we're naive. More and more, we realized that under Xi Jinping, we were dealing with a very, very challenging country.

One very important fact is what Mr. Rosenberg described, what we call economic security or sensitive technology or research and all that. We were one of the first countries to start to invest heavily in protecting this.

With the statistics, when you look at the Investment Canada Act, the transactions showed that every year, and we were partnered with other countries, looking at that. It's an evolution.

When I appeared at PROC, I said this is not a switch that is on and off. It's not that you have no interference and then you have interference overnight. It's something that happens over time.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

I've had members from both the government bench and the official opposition signalling to me that the bells are ringing. I'm aware of this.

Members love throwing points of order at me that aren't points of order. This is a point of order, so I will raise it now. Anyone could have raised it at any time.

We have 19 minutes until the vote. If we hear our last four questioners, that will take 15 minutes. Do I have UC to proceed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

If you don't interrupt me, then I assume we have that, but you are, of course, free to raise that point of order.

Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné, you have two and a half minutes. Go ahead.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Let's recap.

According to you, Mr. Rosenberg, the two people who made the donations—Niu Gensheng and Zhang Bin—didn't speak English very well. You even had to thank them in Mandarin.

Do you think those two people cared so much about the foundation's scholars and noble mission that they made donations to Canada through the foundation bearing the name of this former prime minister? Do you think they made the donations all for the good of the scholars?

[Morris Rosenberg]

That's what we thought because that is what they did with the University of Toronto, in honour of Norman Bethune.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Just because others do something wrong does not mean you should too. That's not a good reason.

What you should have done is address the problem and not sign donation tax receipts that wound up going to another company. I repeat, that is not allowed under the Income Tax Act. As the CRA officials told the public accounts committee when they were here, doing that could cost the foundation its charitable status.

In any case, I have another question for you.

You were the foundation's president and CEO for four years. Do you think a charitable organization that uses 41% of its funding to pay its executives is properly allocating its resources to charitable activities, especially when that average is 14% in Quebec?

[Morris Rosenberg]

I don't have those figures in front of me.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

I just gave them to you. The foundation spends 41% as compared with Quebec's average of 14%.

[Morris Rosenberg]

I don't know. You're referring to an average. The proportion is higher for some organizations and lower for others. At this time, I can't say whether it's appropriate in the case of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. When I worked there, it was a small organization, and I don't know whether that has changed since I left.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

I have just half a minute left, Mr. Rosenberg, and I have one last question for you. You seem to be evading the question about compensation, so I'll come back to the donations.

I'm not sure whether you asked yourself these questions. Although you thought that the two individuals who wanted to make donations to the foundation were well-intentioned, why didn't you take a closer look? Wasn't it your job as the foundation's president and CEO to protect its reputation and make sure that it didn't take donations from people who were obviously using the Trudeau name to influence the newly elected Prime Minister?

[Morris Rosenberg]

You said it was obvious, but I completely disagree. Given the nature of the donation and the fact that there were no strings attached to the conferences that were to be held, we thought it was a good idea—not to mention the fact that Canada's ambassador in Beijing knew the donor and had introduced him to Mr. Lefebvre at the Université de Montréal.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

You're out of time, Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné. Thank you.

Mr. Desjarlais, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to address my questions to Mr. Jean.

In relation to your previous testimony and the facts you presented, there's a narrative here. It's the narrative of an experience that you and many of the witnesses here today have been able to piece together for us. I think it's an important piece to how we understand foreign interference, particularly by state actors like China, but even by other state actors like Russia.

In your experience, Monsieur Jean.... I know you served as intelligence adviser to the Prime Minister during a time when these policies may have been shifting very quickly. You mentioned the volatile movement of position. We heard from Mr. Rosenberg about how even civil society.... The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation was seeking to get these donations from China and to find ways to participate in a better relationship. Mr. Rosenberg mentioned, for example, as the former CEO, that they were witnessing the government taking pandas and other items like that to try to build this relationship.

During your time, and during this kind of narrative, did you see this as a risk taken seriously enough, at that time, to call for a public inquiry then? Do you think that was something Canadians were even interested in, at that time?

[Daniel Jean]

That's something I covered at PROC quite in depth when I appeared. We were just starting to see signs of concern. We were seeing a lot more signs on the economic security side. I just spoke about that a few minutes ago, so I'll spare your time on this.

For example, in the summer of 2015, when I was deputy minister of foreign affairs, and just a few months before the election, we issued a diplomatic note to all diplomatic missions, advising them that they should not get involved in elections—knowing the election was going to come soon—as per the Vienna Convention. We were heavily criticized, a bit like Mr. Fadden was in 2010. A few people criticized us for doing that. They felt it was rude. We were seeing signs that some people from foreign countries were trying to intercede at the local level—not to the extent as described in those leaks you've been seeing, but enough to say that an ounce of prevention is worth....

We issued that diplomatic release. We did that. We worked very hard on the economic security side. I spoke to you about that. We first had an attack on the World Anti-Doping Agency in 2016 in Canada. Three months later, the same GRU officer carried out the attack on the U.S. election.

As is often the case in our society, the shiny object is always what's in the paper. A lot of the attention was on cyber foreign interference. We did a lot of work, and that's what led to a lot of the mechanisms you're reviewing in your work on this. We did a lot of work to say that foreign interference may happen in both the cyber and analog worlds, so you need to be equipped for both.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Genuis, you have the floor for five minutes. I will be strict on the time for your and the government's last question round. Go ahead.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think it's important to put on the record that the Harper government was extremely cautious on China. After the Nexen deal, they put additional limitations on investments. Throughout the Harper years, they were getting pressured by the then opposition Liberals to be less cautious and more full steam ahead.

I think it's fair to have a discussion about what aspects of those policies could have been different, but it's not as if there was no daylight between the Liberal and Conservative positions at the time. The Conservatives took a very different approach—a much more cautious approach. When the Liberals came into power, they were talking about not only free trade with China but also an extradition deal with China. That was after the arbitrary detentions of the Garratts, Huseyin Celil and others. I'm glad the detention of the Michaels ended up being a wake-up call. Frankly, it wasn't the first—nor will it, sadly, be the last—case of arbitrary detention. This Liberal government, coming into office in 2015, should have known better.

Mr. Rosenberg, you said something about the ambassador in China introducing these donors to the Trudeau Foundation. Could you share which ambassador that was and when that introduction took place?

[Morris Rosenberg]

First of all, he introduced the donor to the vice-rector, international, at the University of Montreal. It was the University of Montreal that approached the Trudeau Foundation.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Which ambassador was that?

[Morris Rosenberg]

Ambassador Guy Saint-Jacques.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you.

We know that donors attended a cash-for-access fundraiser with Prime Minister Trudeau shortly prior to that donation going forward. Were you aware that those donors had attended a cash-for-access Liberal fundraiser?

[Morris Rosenberg]

I had no idea.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Would it have given you pause if you had known?

[Morris Rosenberg]

Maybe.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Okay.

Were there others at the foundation who were aware or should have been aware—such as the Prime Minister's brother—that these donors were present at that foundation?