What is the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation and what does it do?

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.)

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Conrad Black: Totalitarian China has no serious chance at world dominance

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, at the end of his visit to China this past week volunteered that the West is in a state of decline and that China is on the rise. My own belief is that the West is at a plateau from which it will resume its advance when the United States surmounts its current state of nervosity. Nor am I convinced of the inexorable rise of China: it is a totalitarian state prone to frequent errors in almost all aspects of its foreign and domestic policy and brutalizes its own population. Apart from the armed forces, and those with some reservation, no Chinese institution is much admired and no utterance or statistic published by the government of the People’s Republic is worthy of being believed.

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Taiwan: Baerbock, Macron comments raise questions on EU ties

First, France’s Macron said Europe shouldn’t follow the US on Taiwan. Then, Germany’s top diplomat said France’s China policy reflected the policy of the EU as a whole. How are these comments seen in Taiwan?

France’s Emmanuel Macron has prompted backlash by saying that Europeans should not be “followers” of either US or China when it comes to Taiwan and urging for more EU autonomy in international policy.

His statements came as China was conducting a massive three-day military drill around the self-ruled island, which Beijing sees as a part of its own territory. On Wednesday, Macron said he was standing by his comments and that “being an ally does not mean being a vassal” of the US. At the same time, he emphasized that France supported “the status quo in Taiwan” and was in favor of solving the situation peacefully.

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The Sino-Forming of the Global South

Why did Saudi Arabia and Iran go to Beijing to restore diplomatic relations?

Why did Brazil’s President Lula visit Huawei headquarters in Shanghai this week, after declaring that the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China) should launch a global currency to replace the dollar?

Why did French President Emmanuel Macron declare after his meeting with Xi Jinping: “For the French president… it is crucial for the European nations to avoid becoming ‘vassals’ when Europe can be ‘the third pole’ vis-à-vis the United States and China. We do not want to adopt a ‘bloc-to-bloc logic’… and submit to ‘the extraterritoriality of the dollar.’”


Victor Davis Hanson: Our Allies Are Distancing Themselves From Us, Will Stay Neutral Or Look At A New Coalition

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Michael Higgins: Katie Telford and the Liberal doctrine of secret government

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.

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Don Martin: Too much smoke not to have a fire somewhere inside the PMO or Liberal Party

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.

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Vincent Ke serves Global News with libel notice over foreign interference report

Vincent Ke communist chinese asset

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.

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‘Another convenient non-answer’: Katie Telford stonewalls on foreign interference

Full of shit.

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.

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Trudeau Foundation asks Auditor-General to investigate donation

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.

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No way around an inquiry into foreign interference

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 …

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Trudeau Foundation ‘collateral damage’ of Poilievre’s partisan attacks, says Oil Can Harry

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.”

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Ahead of Telford testimony, Trudeau says “We have been talking about foreign interference for years.”

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.”

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Trudeau Foundation donor heads group that adheres to ‘total leadership’ of Chinese Communist Party

A businessman whose reported donations to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation led to the resignation of its CEO is the president of a Chinese cultural organization that says it operates under the authority of the communist government.

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