QUESTION PERIOD — Foreign Affairs
Canada-China Relations
April 19, 2023
My question is for the government leader in the Senate. Senator Gold, I want to take you back to a dinner I asked your predecessor about in November of 2016. None other than Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was the headliner, shall we say, at this intimate, cash-for-access dinner at the private Toronto residence of an individual with close ties to the communist regime in Beijing. Someone else with close ties to that regime was also in attendance — Mr. Zhang Bin. He’s important because he’s the one under whose name — or so we were told — a sizeable donation was made to the Trudeau Foundation just weeks following that infamous dinner.
As a foreign citizen, neither Mr. Zhang nor Beijing’s communist regime — or any other foreign entity — can make political donations in Canada. However, they seem to have found a way around those pesky Canadian electoral laws by essentially laundering such a donation through the foundation bearing the Prime Minister’s name. The Prime Minister claims he’s not involved in the foundation, but a lot of suspicions have arisen. It was actually the Prime Minister’s brother who signed and issued the receipt for what we now know was an illegal donation.
My question for you, Senator Gold, is this: Will the Prime Minister do the right thing and formally cease all involvement with the foundation, or will he continue to use it as a scheme to leverage for his government and for the electoral benefit of the Liberal Party of Canada?
Honourable colleagues, I’ve said on many occasions — and here I’m repeating what he has said on many occasions — that the Prime Minister has no active involvement with the foundation. Once again, I think that to imply — as you did, Senator Housakos — that it is a scheme to bypass electoral laws countenanced by the Prime Minister does not do justice to the discourse that we should be having in this place.
The Prime Minister has been clear that he has no involvement with the foundation. The foundation, upon discovering the issue, has done the right thing. The foundation has also asked for itself to be audited by the Auditor General, who has an independence of government, and that is sufficient.
The fact seems to contradict what the government is trying to articulate. At the end of the day, we’re talking about how the board of directors of the foundation resigned in unison. Clearly, there’s something there that draws suspicion. Furthermore, we have sources from the intelligence community that have actually gone public right now through the media and have said on many occasions they tried to inform the Prime Minister of egregious behaviour and direct threats to our democracy. There are reasons why we’re asking all these questions, Senator Gold.
Speaking of foreign money laundering, also at the same cash-for-access dinner with the Prime Minister was the founder of WealthONE Bank of Canada, which at the time was awaiting approval for federal regulators to begin operating in Canada as a domestic bank rather than as a foreign bank. Wouldn’t you know it, similar to the donation of the Trudeau Foundation, WealthONE magically received their long-awaited approval just a few short weeks after this particular dinner.
Senator Gold, fast forward to just a couple of months ago, and WealthONE Bank of Canada was slapped with almost $700,000 in fines by Canada’s anti-money-laundering watchdog, FINTRAC, or the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada. FINTRAC cited numerous failures to comply with federal law designed to guard against terrorist financing. In response to questions about this, your government simply said that the matter was closed.
My question to you is this: What did the founder of WealthONE promise Justin Trudeau at this dinner that resulted not only in favourable regulation very quickly but, furthermore, the government turning a blind eye when it came to money laundering and simply saying the case was closed and not giving detailed answers? Is there another donation to the Trudeau Foundation that we should perhaps be investigating deeper?
Senator Housakos, the issue of foreign interference is a serious one, and I only wish at least that both sides — both questioner and answerer — would be able to discuss it in a way that is absent the insinuations and smears that are implicit in your question.
The fact is that the world has changed, and our understanding of China has changed since 2015-16 and at present — and properly and understandably so. When banks engage in irregular behaviour, thank goodness we have institutions that call them out. In that regard, the system worked.
