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MPs call for release of Trudeau Foundation’s tax records after alleged donation from China raises questions – LifeSite

OTTAWA (LifeSiteNews) – Canadian MPs who sit on a committee investigating public accounts are demanding they be allowed to review the tax records of the Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation, whose entire board resigned last month after a report surfaced detailing how it received a $200,000 donation alleged to be connected to Communist China.

On Monday, both Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) and Bloc Québécois MPs from the House of Commons public accounts committee gave a notice that up to 10 years’ worth of the Foundation’s tax returns should be released for review.

CPC MP Kelly McCauley said that Canadians are “owed a proper explanation” about the Foundation.

As noted in Blacklock’s Reporter, he asked, “Is there political interference with the Canada Revenue Agency’s (CRA) decision to target some charities but give others a pass or whether the Agency is going off on its own bent and not following the rules?”

McCauley and the other MPs’ demand to review the tax records comes considering the Foundation is alleged to have distorted its large gift from a Chinese donor with ties to a Communist China-linked TV channel.

After asking for the tax records, McCauley sponsored a motion that would compel the CRA to release decades worth of the Foundation’s tax returns, including a list of all foreign donors. The Foundation is a registered charity.

McCauley said he was looking to get a “clear indication with this specific charity on whether the Agency is following the rules,” or as he put it, “just giving them a pass that regular, everyday Canadians who are not related to powerful elites or businesses or donors in Toronto, Ottawa and Montréal would not get.”

His motion, however, was defeated after Liberal and NDP MPs voted down his request, saying it was “incredibly problematic” to ask to see the Foundation’s tax records as it would breach the “privacy” of the embattled charity.

Despite this, CPC MP Garnett Genuis said that the caucus of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was avoiding “accountability for the Trudeau Foundation regarding foreign interference.”

“The supposition that someone would be violating the law by complying with an order to provide information to a parliamentary committee just completely ignores what a parliamentary committee is,” he observed.

Genuis continued, saying that “we’re not just 10 or 11 people sitting around a table.”

“We exercise the authority of Parliament when we order production of documents and we have a moral obligation to use that information responsibly,” he added.

Earlier this week, LifeSiteNews reported on how the head of the CRA admitted that the Foundation could be facing a tax audit after MPs demanded one be done.

CRA commissioner Bob Hamilton told the House of Commons public accounts committee last Thursday that the tax agency might soon “take a look” at the Foundation’s books.

Last week, LifeSiteNews reported on how the former head of the Foundation Morris Rosenberg admitted he never questioned the fact that a Canadian charity tax receipt for $140,000 was sent by the Foundation to an address in China linked to a TV production company with a Canadian address.

The Foundation came under fire recently after a scandal broke detailing how the non-profit group received a $200,000 donation alleged to be connected to the Communist Chinese Party (CCP).

It also appears the Foundation ignored warnings from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) regarding accepting certain cash donations.

Last month, after the CCP-linked donation scandal broke, the foundation said it would return the money.

On April 10, the Trudeau Foundation’s entire board of directors, including the president and CEO, resigned after the report surfaced.

In early May, Alexandre “Sacha” Trudeau, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s brother, denied that the donation was a type of foreign interference.

Alexandre Trudeau was testifying before the ethics committee over his involvement in the Trudeau Foundation and its connection with the Chinese Communist Party.

Records show that Sacha was a senior director when the Foundation altered documents regarding 2016 Chinese donations. He claimed the Foundation did “nothing wrong.”

The Foundation was granted by Parliament in 2002 a $125 million endowment, with annual interest from the grant being its main source of revenue.

Recent reports have surfaced showing Canada’s national security revealed that the Communist Chinese government was allegedly funding Canadian political candidates in the 2019 and 2021 federal election.

The potential interference by foreign agents has many Canadians concerned, especially considering Trudeau’s past praise for China’s “basic dictatorship” and his labeling of the dictatorial nation as his favorite country other than his own.

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