Justin Trudeau’s brother spoke on Wednesday regarding the Chinese Communist Party-backed donation to the Trudeau Foundation, saying it was the only donation in 20 years he signed for.
Alexandre Trudeau had volunteered to answer questions at the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics regarding the dirty donation.
In March, the Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation attempted to give back the Chinese Communist Party-backed donation recently discovered — and weeks later, the entire Board of Directors, President, and CEO resigned.
On Wednesday, Conservative MP Michael Barrett’s first question to Alexandre Trudeau was how many donations he signed agreements for during the twenty years that he was a part of the Foundation.
The Prime Minister’s brother said the only one he ever signed for was the alleged CCP-backed donation.
However, Trudeau also said he still has no reason to this day to believe the donation was dirty.
“I don’t think this is accurate information,” Trudeau said of the donation.
Later, Conservative MP Michael Cooper asked Trudeau why CCP advisor Zhang Bin — who was part of the dirty donation — would attend a cash-for-access event in 2016, given that Zhang was not a Canadian citizen.
“I bet he wanted a photo with the Prime Minister to show to his friends,” Trudeau responded.
Conservative MP Larry Brock later asked Trudeau if he did due diligence on the company that the dirty donation came from, namely Zhang’s Millennium Golden Eagle International company.
Trudeau admitted that he knew the address for Zhang’s multi-million dollar company led to a mansion in a Montreal suburb, but he said it’s not an issue.
Brock pressed Trudeau, further noting that a Hong Kong address listed by the company doesn’t even exist.
Trudeau said he wasn’t aware, and added: “Corporate addresses are fairly irrelevant, frankly, for the nature of ownership, for the nature of taxes.”
“Thank you, everything’s irrelevant, I get it,” Brock responded.
As reported by the Epoch Times, the former CEO of the Trudeau Foundation, Morris Rosenberg, conceded that, in 2014, he met with Chinese officials to discuss the potential donation.
“So the foundation met with a foreign government, arranged this donation … and it’s minuted that it was a requirement to have Mr. [Alexandre] Trudeau personally involved,” MP Barrett said on Tuesday.
Last month, Prime Minister Trudeau said that he wasn’t involved with his family’s charity ever since he was elected in 2015.
However, Trudeau met Zhang in 2016 at a cash-for-access Liberal Party fundraiser hosted by the Chinese Business Chamber of Canada chair Benson Wong. Trudeau was the guest of honour at the event. The pay-to-play Liberal fundraiser came just months after Zhang’s donation was finalized.
Zhang donated $1 million to “honour the memory and leadership” of Trudeau’s father and former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, as reported in the Globe and Mail. Most of Zhang’s and businessman Niu Gensheng’s donation went to the University of Montreal, while $140,000 went to the Trudeau Foundation.
