Poilievre Calls for PM’s Brother to Testify on Involvement in Trudeau Foundation’s Donation From Beijing

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is calling for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s brother to appear before a parliamentary committee to face questions about his involvement in a Chinese regime-connected donation previously sent to the Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation.

“We already knew that intelligence services have stated that the Beijing communist regime disbursed $140,000 to the Trudeau Foundation in order to influence the Liberal leader who’s now the Prime Minister of Canada,” Poilievre said in French during question period in the House of Commons on April 17.

“But now we know that his brother—his own brother—was the one that negotiated and signed the deal to receive the money,” he added. “Will the prime minister accept to call his brother to a parliamentary committee to answer questions about this?”

Alexandre Trudeau, the prime minister’s younger brother, was the foundation’s director in 2014 when he met with Chinese billionaires Zhang Bin and Niu Gensheng, who are responsible for the six-figure donation to the Trudeau Foundation in 2016.

Also present at the 2014 meeting was then-Université de Montréal vice-president Guy Lefebvre. The group discussed establishing the “Trudeau Education Foundation” at UdeM’s Faculty of Law.

Zhang is a member of the Chinese regime’s National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and also president of the China Cultural Industry Association (CCIA), a state-backed entity. Niu is a consultant with the CCIA.

Prime Minister Trudeau was not present at question period on April 17 to personally respond to Poilievre’s call for his brother to testify before a committee.

However, Government House Leader Mark Holland fielded the question, saying the prime minister “has not been involved” with the Trudeau Foundation for “approximately a decade.”

“His [Poilievre’s] fixation with the prime minister’s family is well known for its partisan interests,” Holland said. “But the prime minister and the government is not engaged with that foundation.”

The Trudeau Foundation previously said it would return the Beijing-linked donation after it was reported on by the Globe and Mail in February.

However, the French-language news outlet La Presse reported on April 12 that the foundation had not returned the donation because the name on the cheque did not match that of the real donor.

Shortly after, the foundation’s entire leadership team resigned after voting unanimously to launch an independent review of its acceptance of the donation.

Noé Chartier contributed to this report.