{"id":42964,"date":"2023-04-14T10:32:10","date_gmt":"2023-04-14T14:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thehub.ca\/?p=42964"},"modified":"2023-05-01T14:08:49","modified_gmt":"2023-05-01T18:08:49","slug":"howard-anglin-the-trudeau-foundation-deserves-to-be-saved-from-itself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thehub.ca\/2023-04-14\/howard-anglin-the-trudeau-foundation-deserves-to-be-saved-from-itself\/","title":{"rendered":"Howard Anglin: The Trudeau Foundation deserves to be saved from itself"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I want to say a good word about the Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation. Maybe it\u2019s my previously-confesse<\/a>d contrarianism, maybe it\u2019s a hitherto undiagnosed masochistic streak, but when I see the sort of pile-on that we\u2019ve witnessed over the last few days, my instinct is to try to find some saving grace and salvage something from the wreckage. In this case, it isn\u2019t easy, but I\u2019ll try.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But first the bad (and buckle up, there\u2019s a lot). As Andrew Coyne put it<\/a>, for much of its existence the Trudeau Foundation \u201cappears to have been run like a cross between a college housepainting service and a Panamanian shell company\u201d\u2014an assessment that does a disservice to both college housepainters and Panamanian accountants. He\u2019s right, and I won\u2019t defend it. I\u2019m not that <\/em>contrarian or masochistic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor am I interested in defending the inexplicable greed and gullibility that has been damningly revealed<\/a> by Bob Fife and Steven Chase in the Globe and Mail<\/em>. What would possess the foundation\u2019s board to accept donations from a transparent front for the Chinese Communist Party is beyond me, and beyond my sympathy. It\u2019s not like a foundation sitting on a $125 million plus taxpayer endowment needed the money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what is left to defend? Two things, I think. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, the foundation\u2019s work, which was the target of a drive-by hit<\/a> from the usually astute Brian Lilley in the Sun<\/em> earlier this week. Lilley opened by asking \u201c[i]f the Trudeau Foundation ceased to exist, would Canadians notice?\u201d It\u2019s a silly question that typifies an attitude that is unfortunately common in politics: if something doesn\u2019t affect you and your life, it can\u2019t have much value. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lilley notes that the Trudeau Foundation was originally set up to create a program similar to the British Rhodes Scholarship program, but \u201cafter 21 years\u201d he\u2019s \u201cnot sure they can claim success on that front.\u201d I don\u2019t know what he\u2019s basing this judgement on, but it sounds to me like he has too lofty an opinion of Rhodes scholars and too low an opinion of Trudeau scholars. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can only speak from experience (which includes meeting quite a few scholars from both programs in Canada and in Oxford), but on balance, the Trudeau scholars stack up well. If a lot of what they have produced is \u201cmuch of … the same banal material academics produce elsewhere\u201d that says more about the state of academia than the foundation\u2019s selection process. And I can assure you, the work<\/a> of Rhodes scholars is no more inspiring<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, and this may seem like a small thing, I want to praise the decisive action by the foundation\u2019s executive and (most of) its board. When was the last time anyone in Canadian public life took responsibility for anything the way they did, resigning en masse<\/em>? Faced with similar allegations of interference in their own party, has a single Liberal cabinet minister demurred, let alone departed?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, my information is anecdotal, but friends I trust have told me that the now-former president and CEO, Pascale Fournier, was doing an excellent job stewarding the selection and development of the program\u2019s scholars. Like many who resigned, she was not in charge when the board decided to accept the Chinese tea money, and from what has been reported<\/a>, her team went to grimly comical extremes to try to give it back. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not saying everyone who resigned is blameless, but as I see it most of the foundation\u2019s past incompetence, including accepting the dodgy donation, can\u2019t be reasonably pinned on the management that resigned. And yet they still resigned. I don\u2019t want to make it out to be a more heroic act than it was, but it was refreshing to see someone step up and show real accountability. So, good for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I don\u2019t understand is why, of all the people to keep on as chairman<\/a> of the three-member board that remains to keep the foundation\u2019s work going and to prepare it for whatever comes next, they would choose Edward Johnson, who is neck deep in the foundation\u2019s, shall we say, complicated<\/em> history. Why is one of the men responsible for the foundation\u2019s problem\u2014he is a founding member and was a director when the Foundation accepted the donation\u2014now in charge when his fellow board members, many of whom weren\u2019t, have resigned?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson is an old Trudeau family insider, having served as Pierre\u2019s executive assistant from 1980 to 1984. He is also the senior vice-president and general counsel of Power Corporation, which in 1978 founded the Canada China Business Council to facilitate trade with recently-opened Red China. This may look suspicious, but I assure you it\u2019s not. It\u2019s worse: this is how the Canadian Establishment works when it\u2019s not<\/em> being suspicious. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another of the remaining board members is curious for another reason, but one that points to the same problem. According to his corporate biography<\/a>, Peter Sahlas is a director by virtue of being \u201celected by the members representing the Estate of the Late Right Honourable Pierre Elliott Trudeau.\u201d (The other director nominated by the Trudeau estate, who did resign, was the late prime minister\u2019s daughter, Sarah Coyne). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both men highlight the Trudeau Foundation\u2019s fundamental flaw, and the clue is in the name. No matter how much good work it did in providing doctoral scholarships, fellowships, and academic mentoring, the foundation could never shake the perception that it was the private plaything of the Trudeau family and their extended family in the Liberal Party because, at least in part, it was. If you want proof, look at the latest 2021-2022 Annual Report<\/a>, where all three of Trudeau\u2019s living children were still listed as members or directors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Yes, despite his disavowal of any knowledge of the foundation\u2019s business, the prime minister\u2019s name is still listed right next to his brother Sacha\u2019s as a \u201csuccession member\u201d of the foundation. Jesse Armstrong<\/a> couldn\u2019t script it better. A discrete asterisk informs the reader that \u201cThe Rt. Hon. Justin Trudeau has withdrawn from the affairs of the Foundation for the duration of his involvement in federal politics.\u201d Not permanently, mind you, just while he\u2019s occupying the prime minister\u2019s office, with the implication that we are not to worry\u2014he will be back. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forget temporarily stepping away from the foundation, Justin Trudeau never should have been involved in the first place. When the foundation was established in 2001 (with taxpayer money, remember), he had no relevant qualifications. This was around the time he was describing himsel<\/a>f to the press as \u201cfar from a finished product … I haven\u2019t done anything. I haven\u2019t accomplished anything.\u201d And he wasn\u2019t exaggerating. He was a 30-year-old trust fund kid about to drop out of an engineering program. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in 2001, it probably never occurred to anyone that Pierre\u2019s wastrel son would become a serious political player. Sure, he\u2019d attracted the spotlight a year before for his treacly eulogy at his father\u2019s funeral, but the thought that he would follow in his father\u2019s footsteps was still just the misty-eyed fantasy of a few greying Boomers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet there he is in the very first Annual Report<\/a> alongside Sacha, the Roman to his Kendal<\/a>l. And what, come to think of it, did their 31-year-old half-sister Sarah bring to the board of directors before she resigned beyond sacred bloodline? You can see why the Chinese Communist Party might have confused the Trudeau Foundation with the Trudeau family. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The line was further blurred, of course, by the prime minister\u2019s appearance with the same donor at a Liberal Party fundraiser in the same year. (As for the $800,000 that the same source pledged to the University of Montreal law school, Pierre Trudeau\u2019s alma mater, there is Sacha once again<\/a>, dragged out to lend his surname to the official announcement.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what now? You can say that the foundation should give back its endowment and turn off the lights, and I wouldn\u2019t object. But most of our peer countries think it\u2019s worthwhile to have a national graduate scholarship program of this kind, and I agree. And if we are going to have such a program and we already have a body with the infrastructure and experience to deliver it, we might as well use it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem was not the idea but the execution, specifically the structural flaws that were baked into it the foundation from the beginning, which even the best leadership could not have overcome. The board and the executive\u2019s resignation provide an opportunity for a complete re-set. That is, if the remaining board members are prepared to take it, which is why I was so critical of the choice to keep on board members who are by implication tainted with the foundation\u2019s core problems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new chairman has said<\/a> that they are \u201claunching an independent review of the organization\u2019s acceptance of a donation \u2018with a potential connection to the Chinese government\u2019\u201d that will be \u201cconducted by an accounting firm instructed by a law firm, neither of which were previously involved with the Foundation.\u201d That is not good enough. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last thing the foundation needs is another Liberal-connected law firm (because they all are) directing another Liberal-connected accounting firm (because they all are) to provide them with a list of cosmetic measures that will allow the family business to carry on as usual. The board should skip the \u201creview\u201d and move straight to the \u201cindependent\u201d part with a top-to-bottom reordering of the foundation\u2019s governance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ditch the Trudeau name. Cut all ties with the Trudeau family. Give the tainted money to a charity fighting human rights violations in China. And then step aside so that a new board and new management can take over. Nothing less will honour the recent board and management resignations; nothing less can save the good work the foundation was doing and should continue to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ditch the Trudeau name. Cut all ties with the Trudeau family. Give the tainted money to a charity serving human rights violations in China. And then step aside so that a new board and new management can take over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":42973,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-04-14T14:32:15Z","apple_news_api_id":"cb8166e0-c420-4f50-9a74-509b81072230","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-05-01T18:08:48Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/Ay4Fm4MQgT1CadFCbgQciMA","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":"","_custom_css":"","_custom_scss":""},"categories":[124,47,6],"tags":[],"hub_format":[2],"thefutureofnews":[],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehub.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42964"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehub.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehub.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehub.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehub.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thehub.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehub.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehub.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehub.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehub.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42964"},{"taxonomy":"format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehub.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hub_format?post=42964"},{"taxonomy":"thefutureofnews","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehub.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thefutureofnews?post=42964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}