The CEO of the Trudeau Foundation who was at the helm when it received a donation from businessmen tied to the Chinese regime told a House of Commons committee on May 2 that the donation was not foreign, but MPs questioned the assertion with receipts.

Morris Rosenberg said in his opening statement that the donation receipt had been made to the entity that provided the gift, Millennium Golden Eagle Canada, and he said a search for corporate records shows its headquarters is in Dorval, Quebec.

“Therefore, this is not a foreign donation,” Rosenberg said. The former public servant, who headed the foundation from 2014 to 2018, had told the same thing to a news outlet in 2016 when the controversy first emerged.

The company’s address is indeed in Dorval, but it’s affiliated with a Chinese corporation of the same name backed by Beijing. It is also owned by Zhang Bin, the president of a state-affiliated group and an adviser to the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

Rosenberg’s successor, Pascale Fournier, told the committee on April 28 that Rosenberg had provided “misleading” information to Canadians in 2016 when commenting on the donation and that the receipt actually showed an address in China.

Conservative MP Luc Berthold, apparently having on hand a copy of the receipt, read out loud the address to Rosenberg, which mentions Hong Kong, China.

Berthold asked Rosenberg if he had any concerns that he signed and sent a donation receipt to China for a company incorporated in Canada.

“That didn’t seem strange after working as a deputy minister of foreign affairs?” asked Berthold. “The receipt is not saying what you’re saying.”

Rosenberg, who worked as deputy minister from 2010 to 2013, said he didn’t find it strange “because we were asked to send the receipt.”

Fournier testified last week that the China Cultural Industry Association (CCIA) was in communication with the foundation to direct it on what to write on the donation receipts. The donation had been framed as coming from businessmen Zhang Bin and Niu Gensheng, respectively president and consultant with the CCIA.

The CCIA is an entity directed by the Chinese regime, which Rosenberg called a “soft power organization.” Soft power is a tool used by states to advance their national interests through influence and persuasion.

Zhang and Niu struck a deal with the Trudeau Foundation and the Université de Montréal (UdeM) in 2014 to provide them respectively with $200,000 and $800,000. The foundation would run China-related conferences and the UdeM would set up scholarships for students wanting to go to China.

The donation was framed as coming from the businessmen and not corporate or state entities, and to honour former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s effort to build relations with communist China. Trudeau studied and taught at the UdeM faculty of law.

Conservative MP Michael Barrett called Zhang and Bin “cutouts for a soft power operation” for the Chinese regime to wield influence in Canada and asked Rosenberg if he had been sensitized to such threats as a deputy minister, to which Rosenberg replied in the affirmative.

“Did you not find it odd that this donation from Beijing, from cutouts acting directly on behalf of the communist dictatorship in Beijing, were suddenly looking to target a donation to a foundation that bared the name of one of the candidates for prime minister in the election?”

Rosenberg said the donation had to be taken in the context of the time, when “just about every university in Canada, many corporations, the government of Canada, including the Harper government, had changed their attitude towards China.”

“From that perspective, this was seen as a normal and desirable donation consistent with the foundation’s priorities,” Rosenberg said in his opening remarks.

The Globe and Mail broke the two stories related to the donation in the context of foreign influence schemes.

The first one relates to Zhang Bin attending a cash-for-access Liberal Party fundraiser in 2016 where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was the guest of honour. The second came regarding the multiple national security leaks surfacing in recent months.

The Globe reported in late February that, based on CSIS information, the Chinese regime had told Zhang Bin in 2014 to give money to the Trudeau Foundation, as the Liberals were perceived as poised to take power in 2015.

Conflict within the foundation leadership over how the donation was handled led to most of its leadership resigning in April.

Those who stayed on the board are all Trudeau family friends or founding members, including Edward (Ted) Johnson. He announced after the board’s dissolution that an independent review was being launched into the donation.

Alexandre Trudeau, brother to the prime minister, had been involved early in the negotiations for the Chinese donation deal in 2014 and he will testify in committee on May 3.

Fournier said she couldn’t explain how Alexandre Trudeau, who was a foundation director at the time, had signed the donation contract instead of Rosenberg.

Rosenberg said he approved the donation but “[i]t was felt that given that the donation was to honour Pierre Trudeau … it would be more appropriate for his son to represent the foundation at the ceremony and sign the agreement.”

Rosenberg, a former senior public servant, was tapped to review the 2021 elections protocol meant to inform Canadians if there’s a threat to the integrity of an election. In his report published in February, he said the protocol had worked generally well but made recommendations on improving communications with the public.

He told the committee that his review was not meant to determine whether there had been foreign interference, but only if the protocol had worked. “There’s a lot of stuff in that report that is critical of the government,” he said, pointing to the 16 recommendations he made.

The protocol said there were no incidents that met the threshold to inform the public of a threat.