(Ottawa) Stating that China has never attempted to interfere in the Canadian democratic process through the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, Alexandre Trudeau attacked in eight points, and above all unceremoniously, the former leader and president of the organization’s director, Pascale Fournier.
The testimony of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s younger brother before the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics on Wednesday sounded like a settling of scores.
He set the table by declaring that “no state or individual has attempted to influence the government through the Foundation”, lamenting that Canada, “still a proud bastion of reason”, is in the target of “several foreign powers who are motivated to influence the Canadian state in a perfidious way”.
But what happened at the Trudeau Foundation is not “a matter of interference”, and rather “a management crisis fueled by serious faults committed by our ex-president [Pascale Fournier] “, he argued before setting out eight allegations against her.
Attempt to influence Justin Trudeau’s government through a donation to the Foundation, mystery surrounding the identity of the donors or their affiliations, doubts about the legitimacy of his signature of the contract formalizing the donation, etc. All of this is “resolutely” false, said Alexandre Trudeau in his opening statement.
The checks
Conservative MP Michael Barrett quickly rebounded on the issue of the signature affixed by the witness, on behalf of the Foundation, to the contract formalizing the promised donation of $200,000, of which only $140,000 was paid before being eventually reimbursed.
Before the same committee, last Friday, Pascale Fournier had expressed her incomprehension with regard to this aspect. His successor, Morris Rosenberg, for his part argued that if Alexandre Trudeau had initialed the contract, it was for symbolic reasons.
The donation acceptance policy, of which The Press obtained a copy, yet stipulates that it is the president who must personally accept donations of less than $1 million. No resolution has been adopted by the board of directors to authorize Alexandre Trudeau to accept the donation, according to our information.
The main interested party did not see any particular issue. “I signed paycheques, I live close to the Foundation, so I sometimes signed,” explained the resident of Montreal. He also denied that there was any reason to question the legitimacy of the International Millennium Golden Eagle donation.
“There was the same bank account, from BMO, for the first two donations. Canadian banks are governed by fairly strict money laundering laws. So that meant the company was operating within Canadian standards,” he said.
What about the guidelines provided to the Trudeau Foundation on how to proceed with transactions?
“The instructions, if they took place, it was for the purpose of translation, to have the instructions translated. Again, there is nothing there,” he said. “I would have liked the VG [vérificatrice générale] check it all out […] There is absolutely nothing problematic in this whole file, ”he pleaded.
Last Friday, Pascale Fournier pointed out that International Millennium Golden Eagle “asked Foundation employees to enter information on their tax receipts and said: ‘Please do not enter the names of donors . Please put an address in China”.
Fraternal distance
Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s youngest son had himself requested an invitation to appear before the committee. “I am ready to say everything I know about the Foundation. It’s pressing! “, he insisted in an interview with the daily The duty last week.
As his brother’s testimony approaches on Wednesday morning, Justin Trudeau said he was going “to explain very well what happened and his perspective”, while mentioning that the two had “not spoken to each other. since several weeks “.
As for the Foundation, “since he became Prime Minister, we have never talked about it,” his brother then explained to the committee members. Work on the interference is set to continue with the appearance of interim board chairman Edward Johnson.
With Katia Gagnon, The Press