The federal Finance Department is refusing to release the results of an internal review into allegations it spent millions of taxpayer dollars on a Beijing-based bank described by a former insider as a Chinese Communist Party front, with key details blacked out from a briefing prepared for Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne.Blacklock's Reporter says the censored 2025 memo revisited Canada’s earlier decision to freeze formal engagement with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, a state-backed institution headquartered in Beijing. While Ottawa halted participation in meetings in 2023, it has retained roughly US$159.2 million in shares purchased with public funds.According to the document, Canada suspended its involvement on June 14, 2023 following allegations raised by Bob Pickard, a Canadian who previously served as the bank’s director general of communications. Despite stepping back from governance activities, federal officials have continued to hold the investment without divesting.The memo also confirmed the bank conducted its own internal management review into Pickard’s claims, but any conclusions from that process were redacted before being provided to the minister.In testimony before the House of Commons Special Committee on Canada-China Relations, Pickard characterized the institution as heavily influenced by Communist Party leadership, alleging it operates as a geopolitical tool rather than a neutral development lender..He told MPs Canada gained no measurable benefit from its involvement.Pickard said the presence of a G7 country like Canada was used to lend credibility to the bank and attract Western capital, while helping shield it from scrutiny in Washington. He further alleged that Chinese Communist Party members occupy many of the bank’s most powerful roles, claiming roughly 40% of staff are Chinese nationals, many with party ties.In one instance, Pickard testified that his own assistant was secretly reporting to senior party officials, effectively acting as an internal informant on his communications with journalists and civil society groups.Pressed by MPs for evidence, Pickard said he was an eyewitness to the conduct he described, adding that removing internal documents would have exposed him to severe legal or personal consequences.He also recounted discussions within the bank about potentially sidestepping sanctions on Russia, including talks about allowing Russian firms to bid on contracts. According to Pickard, he was instructed to keep those conversations confidential.Parliament approved Canada’s entry into the bank in 2017 through legislation allowing the Finance Department to spend up to US$375 million on shares. At the time, then-finance minister Bill Morneau promoted the move as a way to create “thousands upon thousands” of Canadian jobs, though no figures have since been released to substantiate those claims.
