OTTAWA – An attempt by the Conservatives to have a parliamentary committee undertake a study aimed at “getting to the bottom of dishonest conduct and attempted foreign interference” of the Trudeau Foundation was voted down by the Liberals and the NDP on Monday.
One of two men arrested for allegedly operating a secret police station for China in Manhattan had photographic evidence on his phone of the opening of a similar covert station in Canada, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation says.
Lu Jianwang, 61, and Chen Jinping, 59, were arrested Monday on charges of conspiring to act as agents of China’s government without informing U.S. authorities, and obstruction of justice.
Zhang Bin, a wealthy Chinese businessman, finds himself in the middle of a controversial 2016 donation to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation that The Globe and Mail has reported was linked to the Chinese government, allegedly part of Beijing’s meddling in Canadian democratic processes.
A Chinese citizen with a home in Quebec, Mr. Zhang is president of the China Cultural Industry Association, a government-backed body that promotes Chinese soft power around the world. He is also a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, an advisory body, and, according to a now-deleted profile of him on the industry association website, a member of the ruling Communist Party.
More like “Meet the Chinese billionaire who bought Justin Trudeau.”
As a multi-party delegation of Canadian politicians returns home from Taiwan, MPs say Canada can learn lessons from the island when it comes to dealing with the threat of foreign interference from China.
Speaking to CBC’s The House from Taiwan as they prepared to depart, Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong and Liberal MP John McKay — who chairs the parliamentary committee on national defence — said they had been impressed by the Taiwanese approach to resisting disinformation campaigns.
“I think there’s a lot of lessons that Canada can learn about foreign interference and how society and government should respond to harden Canadian society against this meddling that we’re experiencing from Beijing,” Chong told host Catherine Cullen.
The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation has been mired in a political controversy that pushed the organization’s president and board to resign last week.
At the centre of the controversy is a 2016 donation from two donors with links to the Chinese government. The donors pledged $200,000 to the foundation at the time.
While the donation spurred an initial controversy in 2016, interest in the story revived in the wake of recent media reports stating Beijing interfered in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections. The foundation said it would reimburse the funds but apparently ran into administrative roadblocks. (Radio-Canada has confirmed the donation has since been returned.)
There was no sunlight, Canadians are still left in the dark
Thanks to the prime minister’s chief of staff we now know that Justin Trudeau reads everything that is put in front of him. What is put in front of him and when, who wrote it, what it contains, and what did he do with the information remains a mystery.
After Liberal MPs wasted days to save her from a Commons committee appearance, Justin Trudeau’s office brain finally showed up Friday for a much-anticipated inquisition over foreign interference in Canadian elections.
It was a spectacular fizzle in terms of fresh revelations, which is precisely how Trudeau chief of staff Katie Telford wanted it as she set out to smother her testimony with a national security blanket.
This is big, La Presse report is saying PMO's claims of wall between PMJT and the Trudeau Foundation, are unraveling. So if it is now confirmed this is a CCP donation, lots of implications. https://t.co/D4ewDPzGoY pic.twitter.com/SvbhThXJcM
— Sam Cooper (@scoopercooper) April 14, 2023
An Ontario legislator says he has served Global News with a notice of libel over allegations of election interference by China.
Vincent Ke argues the Global News article by reporter Sam Cooper falsely accuses him of being deliberately harmful to Canadian democracy.
The article alleged Ke served as a financial intermediary in a Chinese Communist Party election interference scheme.
OTTAWA – The Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff Katie Telford finally appeared before a parliamentary committee examining foreign interference in Canada’s electoral system on Tuesday, but despite testifying for over two-and-half hours, ultimately said very little that shed any light on the matter.
The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation has asked the Auditor-General to investigate a controversial donation from two wealthy Chinese businessmen, who were acting at the behest of the government of China.
A foundation official said the chair of the foundation, Ted Johnson, wrote to Auditor-General Karen Hogan on Friday to request a formal audit of the non-profit organization, which was set up with a $125-million endowment from the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien in 2002. The Globe and Mail is not naming the official, because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Katie Telford wanted to be very clear, she could neither confirm nor deny any allegations about China’s election interference.
Telford, chief of staff to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau since he was first elected in 2015, was testifying before a Commons committee on Friday.
When the CEO and the entire board of directors of the Trudeau Foundation resigned en masse this week, they issued a statement blaming the “political climate” surrounding a donation that it now appears was connected to the Chinese government. It was all to do with “the politicization of the foundation,” they said.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau added to that narrative the same day. After making clear he’s had nothing to do for the past 10 years with the foundation created to honour his father, the PM declared “it is a shame to see the level of toxicity and political polarization that is going on in our country these days.”
That, as they say, did not age well …
Katie Telford refuses to answer a question on whether Global News’ reporting on foreign interference is accurate. pic.twitter.com/EXHaaM1sAI
— The Real Andy Lee Show (@RealAndyLeeShow) April 14, 2023
Twitter “Katie Telford”
The former Liberal cabinet minister who oversaw the creation of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation claims Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is engaging in “ignorant, irresponsible and highly partisan” attacks.
Poilievre called for an investigation into the foundation earlier this week, posting on Twitter about a need to know who “got rich” as a result of donations to the foundation, as well as “who got paid and who got privilege.”
Allan Rock created the corrupt Trudeau Foundation with $125M of our taxdollars. https://t.co/DcELlBzX62
— Dean Skoreyko (@bcbluecon) April 14, 2023
Ahead of Friday testimony from his chief of staff on foreign election interference, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he and Katie Telford have talked about the issue “many” times over the years.
“The conversations I have with my chief of staff, and with my entire government, and with our defence and security experts, are ongoing,” Trudeau told reporters on Thursday. “We have been talking about foreign interference for years.”
