Related: Justin Trudeau and his family spent the holiday season at a luxurious estate in Jamaica belonging to a wealthy family that made a large donation two years ago to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation

A new thing about the Trudeau Foundation: It does not seem to be funding enough charitable work to meet the legal standards required of charities

This is big, La Presse report is saying PMO's claims of wall between PMJT and the Trudeau Foundation, are unraveling. So if it is now confirmed this is a CCP donation, lots of implications. https://t.co/D4ewDPzGoY pic.twitter.com/SvbhThXJcM

— Sam Cooper (@scoopercooper) April 14, 2023

More “Doubts about the Foundation”

(Bumped for more).

Sam Cooper;

More emerging on the upheaval at Trudeau Foundation. La Presse citing sources alleging conflict of interest and lack of transparency from Foundation members that accepted massive PRC-linked cheque, now turns out name on it doesn’t look legitimate. La Presse cites internal Trudeau Foundation review.

As this story evolves, the perception issues surrounding the Special Rapporteur’s prior links to this Trudeau family foundation won’t help the argument that he is totally distant from entities subject of PRC interference efforts

Update: The Globe & Mail lays out the full stink in English: Un-returnable Chinese donation triggered governance crisis at Trudeau foundation

The taxpayer-backed Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation was plunged into crisis in March, several weeks after the Globe and Mail reported that a major 2016 donation ultimately came from the Chinese state rather than a Beijing billionaire, according to an internal document obtained by La Presse.

Shortly after the Globe story broke, the foundation publicly announced it would return $140,000 to the Chinese benefactor.

But the document says problems cropped up when the foundation began preparations to send back the money.

The foundation’s board was alerted that the name on the reimbursement cheque to return the Chinese donation would not be the name of the real donor.

This stalled plans to return the cheque because the name of the true donor, according to the document, did not appear anywhere on the accounting books of the foundation, La Presse reported. It said such a reimbursement would therefore have been unlawful, according to the internal foundation document.

The Montreal newspaper reported that eight members of the foundation board, who were not directors at the time the donation was received in 2016, then demanded that an independent investigation be carried out. They asked those longer-serving members of the board to recuse themselves from any discussion of the matter because they were in a conflict of interest.

One source told La Presse the Chinese donation ultimately turned out to be a “stink bomb” that led to an internal crisis of governance at the foundation.

The newspaper also reported that members of the board of directors even considered asking the office of the federal auditor general to investigate the matter.

These revelations come after the head of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation and its board of directors resigned Tuesday, blaming the political backlash that followed a revelation that the true benefactor behind a large financial gift from a Beijing billionaire was the Chinese government.

The foundation announced in early March that it planned to return $140,000 to the wealthy Chinese donor after The Globe and Mail reported that the contribution was part of a Beijing-directed influence operation to curry favour with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau…

BOOM.

Statement from the Trudeau Foundation

Montreal, April 11, 2023 – 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.

h/t Adam