Information & Ethics committee  Have you been pressured in any way since your resignation, either by members of the board of directors or by others at the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation?

Information & Ethics committee  We had a donation contract, mentioning the University of Montreal, between the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, and two donors identified as individuals who provided their personal addresses in China. From July 9, 2018, until the end of February 2023, I understood that this contract reflected reality and that the two donors had provided their names and addresses.

Information & Ethics committee  Can you describe the circumstances of your resignation from your position as president and chief executive officer of the Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation?

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you. I was saying that you weren't there in 2001, when the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation was created. Can you tell us how and why the foundation was created? What was its original mandate? How has the foundation changed over the past 22 years?

Information & Ethics committee  In 2002, the federal government endowed the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation with the advanced research in the humanities and human science fund of $125 million. The foundation is living off the interest, so we cannot spend that $125 million. We invest it, and we use it to fund Ph.D. students from Canada and across the world who do innovative research around four themes: human rights and dignity, responsible citizenship, Canada and the world, and people and their natural environment.

Information & Ethics committee  Look, as I mentioned at the beginning of my opening remarks, I have a duty of loyalty and confidentiality to my former employer, the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, so my inclination would be to say no. If you are adamant about obtaining certain documents from me, that is your prerogative. There is nothing I can do about it. That is your right, and parliamentary privilege would then override my duty of confidentiality.

Information & Ethics committee  The names of these two donors do not appear in 2016 on the receipt issued by the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation and signed by Morris Rosenberg, and the address was in China. The second receipt in 2017 is different from the first one. The name of the company is there. The address is in Quebec, and the names of the donors are there.

Information & Ethics committee  Appearing as an individual is Pascale Fournier, former president and chief executive officer of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation and full professor in the faculty of law at the University of Ottawa. Over to you, Ms. Fournier. You have five minutes.

Ethics  By admitting that his office is in touch with the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, is the Prime Minister not saying that he has had relatively direct involvement with the Trudeau Foundation?

Ethics  Speaker, the leader of the Bloc Québécois surely remembers the widespread media coverage and questions concerning the Trudeau Foundation back in 2016. The whole reason my office had to ask for answers to the questions we were getting from the media was because we were unaware of what was happening at the Trudeau Foundation and because I have had no direct or indirect involvement with the Trudeau Foundation for a decade.

Ethics  Speaker, I did look up the word “inactive” and do they know what it does not include? It does not include getting the donors of the Trudeau Foundation to pay for their vacation. It does not include getting members of the Trudeau Foundation to be appointed as the election interference watchdog. It does not include appointing a rapporteur to look into that same interference who was an active member of the Trudeau Foundation, and it does it not include having a brother who facilitated the donation from a foreign dictatorship.

New Democratic Party of Canada  Conservative MPs put forward a common-sense motion to have a parliamentary committee investigate allegations of interference at the Trudeau Foundation. This is a foundation that received $125 million in taxpayer money, and the government appoints much of the board. Beijing’s influence in the Trudeau Foundation is an issue Canadians are talking about, yet the NDP refused to let people know the truth.

Information & Ethics committee  With respect to the study on foreign interference, I move: That, in relation to the committee’s study of foreign interference and threats to the integrity of democratic institutions, intellectual property and the Canadian state, the committee: a) Invite Alexandre Trudeau, Founder and Succession Member of the Trudeau Foundation; and b) Summon Pascale Fournier and Morris Rosenberg, both former President and CEO of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, to appear at a date no later than May 5, 2023.

Democratic Institutions  To be perfectly clear, the Prime Minister has no direct or indirect communications with the Trudeau Foundation. That has been the case now for over 10 years.

Democratic Institutions  Speaker, after eight years, we know that the Prime Minister likes travelling by private jet, attending New York high-society receptions, with an audience that is not fully aware of what is going on in Canada. The situation is bad. The Trudeau Foundation, with help from the Prime Minister's brother, received $140,000 from the regime in Beijing. This morning, in committee, after several questions, the Minister of Public Safety could no longer deny Beijing's influence on the Prime Minister.