The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation is returning a controversial $200,000 donation it received seven years ago from a Chinese billionaire with ties to China’s communist regime.
Trudeau Foundation President Pascale Fournier announced in a statement on March 1 that the organization “learned in recent days through the media that there was a potential connection between the Chinese government and a 2016 pledge of $200,000 to be received by the Foundation.”
Fournier said that as an independent, non-partisan charity, “ethics and integrity” were among the foundation’s core values.
“We cannot keep any donation that may have been sponsored by a foreign government and would not knowingly do so. In light of these recent allegations, the Foundation has refunded to the donor all amounts received with respect to the donation pledge,” he said….