Story by La Presse makes recent chaotic events at the Trudeau Foundation look even more dramatic and disturbing. Justin Trudeau’s attempt to somehow blame all of this on the Conservatives already looks like a sad joke.
As reported yesterday, the entire board of directors of the Trudeau Foundation – along with their President & CEO – resigned.
Here’s what they said in their statement on the resignations:
“In recent weeks, the political climate surrounding a donation received by the Foundation in 2016 has put a great deal of pressure on the Foundation’s management and volunteer Board of Directors, as well as on our staff and our community.
The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation is an independent, non-partisan scholarship organization created with broad support in the House of Commons in 2002.
The circumstances created by the politicization of the Foundation have made it impossible to continue with the status quo, and the volunteer Board of Directors has resigned, as has the President and CEO.
Three directors have agreed to remain on an interim basis so that the Foundation can continue to meet its obligations pending Board renewal, including towards its Scholars, Mentors and Fellows.
We would like to thank Pascale Fournier for her work as President and CEO over the past five years, as well as all the members of the Board of Directors.”
However, according to a new story by La Presse, the reason for the resignations given by the Trudeau Foundation isn’t true.
Here are some excerpts (story translated into English from French):
“The reason given by the Foundation in the official press release released on Tuesday, the “politicization” of this donation from China, “is a bunch of lies,” one of the resigning board members told La Presse . administration, which we will call AB
In total, La Presse was able to interview five people who left their positions at the Trudeau Foundation. All requested anonymity, because of the “difficult” climate that reigned in recent weeks within the organization.
“I have seen intimidating and even threatening behavior at the Foundation. It’s not an easy climate. I don’t remember seeing that in my career,” says another board member who resigned on Tuesday, who we’ll call C.D.”
Further, it turns out the “Chinese donation” was never actually returned, despite the Trudeau Foundation claiming they would return it:
“In light of these recent allegations, the Foundation has refunded the full amount of the donation received directly to the donor,” said the organization’s executive director, Pascale Fournier, on March 1 .
Except that this reimbursement could never materialize. “Until recently, my understanding was that the donation had been refunded. But last I heard, he wasn’t,” says another resigning board member, who we’ll call EF.”
According to an internal document La Presse obtained, the name on the donation wasn’t the actual name of the donor, and the Trudeau Foundation didn’t have the real name anywhere. As a result, the donation was not refunded.
Apparently, many of the resigned board members wanted a real investigation, but those who would have been involved at the time when the Chinese donation was accepted refused to recuse themselves:
“Anyone who was on the finance committee or the audit committee at the time of the donation has a conflict of interest because they accepted these checks, AB continues They should not, therefore, be part of an investigation on this subject. They should have recused themselves. And they refused. »
And it would seem that this refusal led to the mass resignations:
“That gift is a stink bomb,” summarizes G. H. “What we experienced was an internal crisis of governance in relation to the management of this file, adds C. D. We have lost confidence in the ability of the organization to handle this file with transparency, integrity and accountability. »
There is something almost fitting about the Trudeau Foundation falling into chaos because they refused to hold an independent investigation of a donation from China at a time when a Prime Minister named Trudeau is refusing to hold an independent investigation of China’s election interference.
It seem that everything linked to Trudeau becomes known for dishonesty, deception, and dysfunction, something we can see all around us in our declining country.
Spencer Fernando
