Eight members of the board of directors, four members of senior management and six people acting as mentors resigned en bloc from the Trudeau Foundation on Tuesday because of major “ethical” questions raised by the “Chinese donation” made to the foundation. in 2016 and 2017.
The reason given by the Foundation in the official press release issued on Tuesday, namely the “politicization” of this donation from China, “is a bunch of lies”, indicated to The Press one of the resigning board members, whom we will call AB
In total, The Press was able to speak with five people who have left their positions at the Trudeau Foundation. All requested anonymity, because of the “difficult” climate that reigned in recent weeks within the organization.
“I have seen intimidating and even threatening behavior at the Foundation. It’s not an easy climate. I don’t remember seeing that in my career,” says another board member who resigned on Tuesday, who we’ll call C.D.
The Chinese donation, never reimbursed
The Trudeau Foundation presents itself as a non-partisan organization, and it offers scholarship, mentoring and fellowship. It was founded in 2002, after the death of Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
At the center of the conflict which tore the board of directors, the famous donation which emanated in theory from a wealthy well-known Chinese businessman, Zhang Bin, close to the Chinese Communist Party.
It was the Chinese government that allegedly ordered the entrepreneur to donate $200,000 to the Trudeau Foundation, revealed the Globe and Mail in February, based on a national security source who reported information intercepted by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).
The Foundation then undertook to repay this donation. “In light of these recent allegations, the Foundation has refunded the full amount of the donation received directly to the donor,” said the organization’s Executive Director, Pascale Fournier, on 1er last March.
Except that this reimbursement could never materialize. “Until recently, my understanding was that the donation had been refunded. But last I heard, he wasn’t,” says another resigning board member, who we’ll call EF.
An internal Foundation document, which The Press got, shows that the crisis erupted at the end of March. The board of directors was then alerted to the fact that the name on the check for the famous “Chinese donation” was not the name of the real donor.
The Foundation could therefore not reimburse the sum to this “true donor”, since his name did not appear anywhere in the Foundation’s books. Such reimbursement would therefore have been “unlawful”, states the document.
Eight members of the board of directors, who were not on it at the time the donation was made to the Foundation, then called for an independent investigation to be carried out. They also asked the members of the board of directors who sat on the Foundation at the time to recuse themselves from any discussion on the subject, since they were “in obvious conflict of interest”, underlines A. B. “The management really wanted let all the light be shed on this”, confirms a fourth resigner from the Foundation, whom we will call G. H.
“Anyone who was on the finance committee or the audit committee at the time of the donation has a conflict of interest because they accepted these checks, AB continues They should not, therefore, be part of an investigation on this subject. They should have recused themselves. And they refused. »
There are people at the Foundation who have been around too long, and have become way too involved. An independent investigation would have determined who the donor was, if there were any conditions attached to these sums, and the relationships behind it all.
A. B., one of the resigning members of the Board of Directors of the Trudeau Foundation
“That gift is a stink bomb,” summarizes G. H. “What we experienced was an internal crisis of governance in relation to the management of this file, adds C. D. We have lost confidence in the ability of the organization to handle this file with transparency, integrity and accountability. »
The “rebellious” board members even thought of asking the Office of the Auditor General to look into this whole issue. At the Office of the VG, spokesman Vincent Frigon says he has not received an audit request from the Foundation.
We contacted the three members of the Foundation who are still in office, in order to gather their comments. One of them declined our interview offer, the other two did not respond to our requests. The foundation’s executive director, Pascale Fournier, who also resigned on Tuesday, also declined our interview request.
Morris Rosenberg, who served as the Foundation’s president at the time of the donations, told us he had “no information” about the resignations. The Foundation would never have received the full sum of $200,000, says Mr. Rosenberg. The donation was to be made in two instalments.
Labeaume “very uncomfortable”
The former mayor of Quebec Régis Labeaume is one of the six mentors of the foundation who also chose to resign on Tuesday. “I was uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. If eight members of the board of directors resign, if the general manager, for whom I have enormous admiration, resigns, it means that something must be happening,” says Mr. Labeaume. Christiane Germain, CEO of the Germain group, and Mélanie Vincent, an entrepreneur who was an advisor to the presidency on Indigenous relations, have also chosen to leave the ship.
Justin Trudeau was a member of the foundation bearing his father’s name, which was created in 2002, but he withdrew after his election as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada in 2013. His brother, Alexandre Trudeau, is still a member.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said on Tuesday that these numerous resignations at the Trudeau Foundation justify the opening of an investigation. “We need to investigate the Beijing-funded Trudeau Foundation. We need to know who got rich, who got paid, and who Justin Trudeau gave privilege and power to through funding from the Trudeau Foundation. »