The former rector of the University of Montreal Guy Lefebvre, who negotiated a controversial donation of one million dollars from which the Trudeau Foundation benefited, announced Wednesday that he was cutting ties with China.
Mr. Lefebvre had obtained in 2022 a chair at the University of Law and Economics of Zhongnan. He also had a course load at the China University of Political Science and Law this year.
“I have decided to cut ties with China and fully assume my retirement,” he announced on Wednesday at the Duty.
Last Friday, in an interview, Mr. Lefebvre said he was in reflection because of allegations of interference by the Chinese government in the donation of one million to the University of Montreal and the Trudeau Foundation.
“There, the question arises, taking into account all these elements, will I maintain a scientific collaboration, he said. I’m starting to find it tricky. »
After confirming his decision on Wednesday, Mr. Lefebvre explained that he had also erased any mention of his relations with China on his Internet page on the University’s website, as reported on Wednesday by The Journal of Montreal.
“So I kept my CV to a minimum as is normally the case with retired professors,” he explained in an email.
Mr. Lefebvre is behind the $1 million donation made by two Chinese businessmen, Zhang Bin and Niu Gensheng. In 2016, donors offered $800,000 to the Université de Montréal and $200,000 to the Trudeau Foundation.
The organization, created to honor the memory of Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, reimbursed last week the sum it had received so far, namely $140,000.
On Wednesday, Mr. Lefebvre referred to allegations, made public in February, that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service had intercepted a conversation between Mr. Zhang and a Chinese diplomat in Canada who had promised him that the Chinese government would reimburse his donation. of a million.
“Once I saw that there were intercepted conversations, you doubt everything at that time,” he said.
small steps
His collaboration with the Zhongnan University of Law and Economics earned him a salary of 13,000 dollars a year for two months of on-site classes, he said.
Last March, he was paid $3,000 for a course he taught remotely at the China University of Political Science and Law.
“I don’t think it’s exorbitant compensation,” he said, arguing that a course load in Quebec is paid $10,000.
Vice-Rector of International Relations and Francophonie at UdeM, from 2014 to 2020, Mr. Lefebvre says he was a follower of “the theory of small steps” with China, in the hope of democratic reforms.
“We have always tried to say ‘we will try to change things by training young people'”, he pleaded.
Mr. Lefebvre notes, however, that the situation has deteriorated over the past three to five years.
“We feel a closure in China,” he said. We feel that in Chinese universities, it’s not like before. »
In Ottawa on Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was asked once again about the donation to the Foundation that bears his father’s name, of which his brother Alexandre Trudeau was a director.
“I have had no direct or indirect contact with the Trudeau Foundation for 10 years and that includes the fact that I do not speak with my brother about the operation of the Trudeau Foundation,” he replied in the House.
Judges
As part of his relations with China, Mr. Lefebvre was active in the development of a training program for Chinese judges who were welcomed annually at UdeM. According to Mr. Lefebvre, the pandemic put an end to this collaboration.
China has never intervened in the content of the courses to prevent the issue of human rights from being addressed, he said.
“I have never heard of any such intervention. We, our theory was the theory of small steps. »
Mr. Lefebvre admitted that it had been difficult to go to China with the Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Quebec, Jacques Fournier, to meet with magistrates, in 2019, when two Canadians, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, were arbitrarily detained by the Chinese authorities.
“In retrospect, maybe it wasn’t a great idea, but that’s the one that got taken,” he said.
With Boris Proulx