Trudeau Foundation | Unable to return the “Chinese donation”

The Trudeau Foundation tried “repeatedly” to return a controversial check to a Chinese donor, but came up against a closed door: the issuing company’s head office is in a decrepit – and deserted – estate located in Dorval. The contract formalizing this donation, which The Press obtained, was signed on behalf of the foundation in 2016 by Alexandre Trudeau, brother of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

From 1^er last March, the Trudeau Foundation took steps to return the donation to the International Millennium Golden Eagle Society, the corporate issuer of the funds. A few days earlier, the Globe and Mail revealed, on the basis of information intercepted by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), that it was the Chinese authorities who had asked two wealthy businessmen to finance the Trudeau Foundation.

It had been agreed that the donation would be $200,000, but the foundation had received $140,000.

The head office of the company issuing the donation is located in a decrepit estate located in Dorval, on chemin du Bord-de-l’Eau. The courier company, which made numerous delivery attempts, came up against a closed door. Again on Wednesday, during a visit by The Pressthe mansion flanked by a tennis court seemed completely deserted.

A few days later, after unsuccessful efforts, the courier company sent the check back to the foundation. “The donation was returned to us this week,” said the resigning general manager, Pascale Fournier, in an email sent to the members of the board of directors. This email is part of a bundle of internal foundation documents that The Press has obtained.

A trust account? Impossible

Faced with the impossibility of returning the funds, the general manager then indicated that she had asked a law firm to open a trust account to deposit the money there. But because she did not know the exact source of the funds, the firm was forced to refuse the Trudeau Foundation’s request.

” Before proceeding, [la firme d’avocats] performed an internal analysis to ensure that the office could accept the money in accordance with the ethical rules applicable in Quebec. However, the foundation was informed [que le bureau] can’t[ait] accept funds in trust for ethical reasons,” wrote Ms.^me Fournier.

On March 29, an internal Foundation document shows that The Press obtained, 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. A request was made to the general management to “print a check to give to the alleged real donor”.

A request which was refused, since the name of this “real donor” did not appear anywhere in the books of the Foundation. Such reimbursement would therefore have been “unlawful”, states the document.

The Executive Director convenes a meeting of the Board of Directors on March 31. At this meeting, the board voted for the launch of an independent investigation into the whole “Chinese donation” affair. The law firm Miller Thomson is in charge of the investigation, with the services of the accounting firm Deloitte.

A few days later, a member of the executive committee, lawyer Peter Sahlas, considered another possibility: having the check delivered to the company by bailiff. “Perhaps the bailiff could give us information on the place of delivery (presence of vehicle, lights on, or other signs of life)”, writes Mr. Sahlas in an email addressed to the members of the executive committee of the Foundation. He wonders why the delivery was not made. “Was it because no one was present, or did the people present not accept the delivery? »

This suggestion of Mr. Sahlas is not well received by the members of the CA “I am completely opposed to any transfer of money until the independent investigation is completed”, writes in particular the former lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia’s Myra Freeman, who was on the Foundation’s board, and who resigned Tuesday along with seven other directors.

Several other board members, including Ginger Gibson, director of the Firelight group, Dyane Adam, former commissioner of official languages, and Madeleine Redfern, an aboriginal businesswoman – all of whom are part of the group of quits on Tuesday – also express their irritation in their responses.

“I propose that the $140,000 not be touched until the end of the independent investigation,” writes Mr.^me Adam. “The executive committee and the board must withdraw completely during the investigation, in order to ensure its independence,” adds general manager Pascale Fournier.

On Wednesday, the Foundation’s new CEO, Edward Johnson, announced that the donation would be subject to independent review. “This independent review will be carried out by an accounting firm on the instructions of a law firm, neither of which has been commissioned by the Foundation in the past,” he said in a statement. transmitted to the media.

Discussions from 2014

Discussions around the “Chinese donation” to the Trudeau Foundation date back to 2014, show documents obtained by The Press. At that time, the two businessmen Zhang Bin and Niu Gensheng expressed the desire to donate $800,000 to the law faculty of the University of Montreal as well as $200,000 to the Trudeau Foundation.

A year later, in September 2015, the Foundation’s Executive Director, Élise Comtois, wrote to the members of the executive and told them that the two Chinese businessmen would be visiting Montreal again in a few days “to sign the donation contract.

“Events are rushing, and we do not want to miss this exceptional opportunity, writes Mr.^me Comtois. We are running out of time to call a board meeting to get them to approve the deal. We therefore need your agreement in principle. Would it be possible to give me your agreement tomorrow? The director general therefore gave the members of the executive less than a day to approve the donation from China.

But the donation will not finally materialize until June 2016. The donation was to be made in three installments, two of $70,000 and the last of $60,000. The last check was never paid. The contract formalizing the donation is signed by Zhang Bin, Niu Gensheng, the rector of the Université de Montréal, Guy Breton, and Alexandre Trudeau, for the Foundation. At the time, Mr. Trudeau was a member of the board of directors of the Foundation, and he was authorized to enter into this type of agreement, indicates the one who was president of the Foundation at the time, Morris Rosenberg.

“I don’t remember exactly. You are asking me for the details of an authorization that dates back seven years, so I am not in a position to tell you, ”said Mr. Rosenberg, when we asked him about the specific role of Alexandre Trudeau on the Board. at the time. Alexandre Trudeau declined our interview offer.

Who are the Chinese donors?

Zhang Bin’s Canadian company that donated to the Trudeau Foundation is called International Millennium Golden Eagle. The Chinese billionaire is the chairman of the board of directors and gives an address in Beijing.

Since 2020, a certain Du Zhichao has been officially CEO of the company, a “holding company” that does “real estate investment”, according to public documents. The Press tried to get in touch with him by ringing the bell at his condo, in a 10-storey building on rue Chomedey, in downtown Montreal. Without success.

In 2013, he registered a company, Minghu International, with a Quebec businessman. On the phone with The Press, this partner explains that he founded this company with Mr. Du to trade with China by taking advantage of the fact that he had “a lot of contacts in the Chinese government”. “We looked at whether we could export different products: beef, leather, drinking water… We looked at different things. »

This Quebec partner, who knew Mr. Du at McGill University, said he did not know which contacts he had to activate for their business. “I know he took care of the businessmen who visited Montreal from time to time,” he says. Their company wanted to enter into contracts with “companies that were linked to the government”. “But it fell through,” he says. Minghu International has been deregistered from the company register since 2016.

Another Chinese billionaire in the portrait

Until 2020, Hu Guojun was the official leader of the International Millennium Golden Eagle. Also of Chinese descent, he runs a real estate business. But according to public documents, he is also vice-president of the Quebec branch of the Lao Niu Foundation, a charity that is owned by another Chinese billionaire, Niu Gensheng.

This businessman joined Zhang Bin in donating $1 million to the University of Montreal and the Trudeau Foundation.

In fact, Niu Gensheng provided the bulk of the sum: $800,000. Of this amount, $750,000 was to go to the creation of scholarships for exchanges between Chinese and Quebec law students, and $50,000 was intended for the erection of a statue representing former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

The University of Montreal plans to reimburse

At the University of Montreal, the director of communications Sophie Langlois specifies that the establishment finally received only $ 500,000 and that the statue in honor of the father of Justin Trudeau was never erected.

As to whether the University plans to reimburse the donation of half a million, the spokeswoman does not close the door. “We are evaluating all our options, in light of the information circulating at the moment. »

In the same donation contract, Zhang Bin pledged to donate $200,000 to the Trudeau Foundation, which ultimately only received $140,000. On its website, Niu Gensheng’s organization credits the entire donation.

“Our foundation donated S$1 million [944 654 $ CAN à l’époque] to create a fund for scholarships at the law school of the University of Montreal, thealma mater of former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, with the aim of promoting Sino-Canadian exchanges in culture, education, as well as to create a bronze statue of Pierre Elliott Trudeau”, writes the Foundation in English on its website.

The site publishes photos showing Alexandre Trudeau, Justin Trudeau’s brother and member of the Foundation’s board of directors at the time, with Niu Gensheng, Zhang Bin and the former rector of the University, Guy Breton.

The Press tried to reach Hu Guojun, the representative of the Lao Niu Foundation in Quebec, without success.