Cory Morgan: Trudeau Foundation Crisis Shows That Charities Must Be Completely Independent of Government

Commentary

When news broke of the resignation of the CEO and board of the Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation, former principal secretary to the prime minister, Gerald Butts, angrily stated on Twitter: “Congratulations to the Globe and Mail. That’s two charities in three years you’ve taken down, tough guys. You must be so proud.”

The second charity Butts was referring to is presumably the WE Charity that closed its Canadian operations in 2020 due to a conflict-of-interest scandal with the Trudeau government.

It’s unfortunate to see major charities scaling back or ceasing operations due to breaches of public trust. Charities don’t need to be protected from media as Butts is trying to imply, though. Charities need to be protected from governments.

The WE Charity scandal exposed how deeply integrated government players can be within charities and how tone-deaf they have become to the conflicts of interest created through those relationships. It never occurred for a moment to Justin Trudeau and senior members of his cabinet that offering a sole-source contract worth over $40 million to a charity that had paid approximately $425,000 to members of the Trudeau family for speaking fees and expenses may raise some eyebrows among the public.

Once it was exposed that then-finance minister Bill Morneau’s own daughter was directly employed by the charity, yet he didn’t recuse himself from cabinet discussions on giving the charity a large contract, it became too much and Morneau was forced to resign.

Whether or not the WE Charity did worthwhile work, it had become a symbol of government cronyism and could no longer credibly function within Canada.

The fate of the Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation is now up in the air as a questionable donation from a person linked to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to the foundation back in 2016 has been exposed.

It’s not just that the CCP-linked person donated to the charity which is causing the crisis. It’s that the CCP clearly thought such donations would potentially curry favour and influence with the Trudeau government. The CCP isn’t prone to donating to other Canadian charities, yet they went to great efforts to pump funds into a charity bearing the Trudeau name. Whether the foundation solicited the donations or not, the optics emerging are terrible.

The Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation was created in memory of the former prime minister and was ostensibly tasked with supporting and creating critical thinkers through scholarships, fellowships, mentorships, and public interaction events. The foundation was given a $125 million grant from the Chretien government in 2002 to help it get started. Few charities begin with such a massive government nest egg to get them rolling.

With the foundation having taken so much taxpayer funding and with the Trudeau name being in the title of the group, one would think Justin Trudeau would know instinctively to keep as far as possible from the foundation to avoid any impressions of impropriety. Alas, one would be wrong.

The members of the Trudeau Foundation and its leadership are a who’s who of Trudeau family members and close government associates. Trudeau’s half-sister Sarah Coyne is a member, as is his brother Alexandre Trudeau.

It can’t be claimed the family members weren’t active in the activities of the foundation. In the almost comical revelation of the foundation’s fruitless search for a donor to return the questionable CCP-linked donation to the fund, Alexandre Trudeau was credited with brokering the agreement with two Chinese businessmen to accept the donation.

As the CCP election interference scandal continues to develop, the prime minister either doesn’t understand why members of the Trudeau Foundation shouldn’t be tasked with investigating it, or actually can’t find somebody he trusts who isn’t connected to the foundation.

Morris Rosenberg was assigned to look into the 2019 and 2021 federal elections to see if there was wrongdoing. Rosenberg found none, but it should be noted that he also was the president of the Trudeau Foundation when it accepted CCP funds.

Trudeau assigned David Johnston as a “special rapporteur” to investigate CCP political interference. Lo and behold, Mr. Johnston was a member of the Trudeau Foundation as well, although he ended his membership when he accepted the rapporteur job.

Johnston and Rosenberg may very well be completely unbiased in their investigations, but it’s impossible to take their conclusions seriously when they are so tightly tied to the Trudeau family and its namesake charity.

When all is said and done with the CCP interference scandal, the Trudeau Foundation may collapse in the fallout. It may not be due to any malfeasance, but due to lost trust because of Justin Trudeau’s incapability of drawing a line between his government and charity operations.

Canada has over 80,000 registered charities that do great work. They must be separated from the government if volunteers and donors are to trust them. If Trudeau can’t determine the line, perhaps it’s time for new legislation to define it for him.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.