Canada, China had better relationship at time of Trudeau Foundation pledge: Rosenberg

The level of caution Canadian institutions must now take when dealing with China was not top of mind when the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation accepted a pledge from a Chinese billionaire, says the former head of the charitable organization.

Morris Rosenberg was president and CEO of the Trudeau Foundation from 2014 to 2018, which is when the charity was given $200,000 by Zhang Bin, a political adviser to the Chinese government, and Niu Gensheng, a Chinese businessman and philanthropist.

The charity set up to honour the legacy of the former prime minister announced Wednesday it is returning the donation after the Globe and Mail alleged it was linked to a Chinese government plot to influence Justin Trudeau after he became Liberal leader.

"As an independent, non-partisan charity, ethics and integrity are among our core values and we cannot keep any donation that may have been sponsored by a foreign government and would not knowingly do so," Pascale Fournier, the current president and CEO of the Trudeau Foundation, said in a written statement.

Citing an unnamed national security source, the newspaper reported Zhang was instructed by Beijing to donate $1 million in honour of the elder Trudeau in 2014, two years before the $200,000 donation to the Trudeau Foundation was made.

The Canadian Press could not immediately reach Zhang regarding the allegations in the Globe and Mail, which said Tuesday he did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Niu also could not immediately be reached for comment.

Rosenberg, who said talks about the donation were already underway when he assumed his role, recalls that at the time Canada had a more positive, hopeful and trusting relationship with China.

He said the situation has changed since then and Canadian institutions need to question China's motivations for entering into such relationships.

"It's a different environment today," Rosenberg said in an interview.

"I think more caution is being exercised by all Canadian institutions," he said. "But that wasn't the situation back in 2016."

The former senior public servant was tasked with authoring a recently released independent report on how a federal panel monitored foreign interference in the 2021 election.

He concluded the panel created by the Critical Election Incident Public Protocol, which did not feel any foreign interference in the 2021 or 2019 elections reached the threshold to alert Canadians, worked well overall.

But he made several recommendations on better informing Canadians about what the panel would consider cause for concern and urged further study on whether to lower the bar on when to tell the public about potential threats.

The Conservatives have been bringing up Rosenberg's previous role at the Trudeau Foundation in arguing for a public inquiry, saying the $200,000 donation raises "serious questions" about his being "hand-picked" by the Liberal government to write the report.

In response, Rosenberg pointed to his long career as a public servant for both Conservative and Liberal governments, which included a three-year stint as deputy minister for foreign affairs under former prime minister Stephen Harper.

The $200,000 donation, which was part of a $1-million pledge that also included money for the Universite de Montreal, came under scrutiny soon after it was made in 2016.

That was in part because weeks before the donation became public, Zhang had attended a fundraising event at a private residence in Toronto. The political controversy over the so-called cash-for-access events eventually led the Liberal party to bring in new transparency rules for fundraising.

Rosenberg said in the interview he was unaware that Trudeau would attend the 2016 fundraiser with Zhang.

"There was no co-ordination. This was a coincidence," he said.

Rosenberg also said he does not have a personal relationship with Zhang or Niu and thinks he met them "once, briefly" at a ceremony at the Universite de Montreal.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 2, 2023.