Amid growing concerns over foreign interference by the China, the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation announced it will return a $200,000 donation it received from the Chinese Communist Party back in 2016.."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," the foundation said.."In light of these recent allegations, the Foundation has refunded to the donor all amounts received with respect to the donation pledge.".The Globe and Mail published a story alleging that the Chinese government attempted to influence Justin Trudeau after he became leader of the Liberal Party. In order to do this, it instructed Chinese billionaire Zhang Bin to donate $1 million to the Trudeau Foundation in 2014. The billionaire was told he would be reimbursed by the Chinese government for the full amount..After Trudeau was elected prime minister in 2015, Zhang and another billionaire donated $200,000 to the Trudeau Foundation, $50,000 to pay for a statue of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, and $750,000 to the University of Montreal's faculty of law to fund scholarships, including grants to help Quebec students visit China..Trudeau's press secretary Ann-Clara Vaillancourt said that following his election as leader of the Liberals, Trudeau "withdrew his involvement in the affairs of the foundation for the duration of his involvement in federal politics.".Morris Rosenberg, a former head of the Trudeau Foundation, was selected in 2022 to write an independent report to assess the effectiveness of a government panel that monitored the 2021 election for foreign threats. But the Conservatives say Rosenberg was involved in facilitating the $200,000 donation from Zhang, who was also "intimately involved in Trudeau’s 2016 billionaire cash-for-access scandal.".“This discredits the report and proves we need a separate investigation, and the government should fully cooperate with the House committee studying this very issue,” the party said..The prime minister is under growing pressure to call a public inquiry into Chinese election interference following reports that Beijing supported Liberal MP Han Dong in the 2019 election. According to the article, CSIS alleged that Chinese international students with fake addresses were bussed into the riding and coerced to vote in Dong’s favour. Dong has denied the allegations..Trudeau said an independent inquiry is not necessary because a House Committee is studying the issue. The prime minister said Monday his government will be examining the recommendations put forward in the upcoming report on foreign election interference. “It’s important to get the tools right to protect our democracy," he said.
