Mainstream journalists were Trudeau Foundation mentors during time it accepted CCP-linked gift
The Toronto Star's Susan Delacourt, Globe and Mail's Andre Picard and CBC's Marie Wilson were mentors at the Trudeau Foundation when it was contaminated with cash linked to the Chinese Communist Party.
Although the Trudeau Foundation has recently announced it will return the 2016 donation from Chinese billionaire Zhang Bin, the donation is part of a larger scheme between Zhang and Beijing to influence Prime Minister Justin Trudeau beginning in 2014.
Trudeau became the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada in 2013.
According to reports in the Globe and Mail, Zhang was to donate a million dollars to a plot to curry favour from Trudeau in 2015. According to leak from Canada's intelligence agency CSIS, the billionaire was told the Chinese government would reimburse him for the contribution.
In 2015, Zhang and another Chinese billionaire, Niu Gensheng, donated $200,000 to the Trudeau Foundation.
In an appeal to the vanity of the Trudeau family, another $50,000 of CCP donations went to fund a statue of Pierre Trudeau in Montreal, and a final gift from the million-dollar slush fund went to the elder Trudeau's alma mater, the University of Montreal faculty of law to fund students to visit China.
Mentors appointed by the Trudeau Foundation, which claims to provide leadership programs, serve a three-year term.
Rebel News examined the list of mentors from 2012–2018 for mainstream media journalists who would have unwittingly been involved in the not-for-profit when it was contaminated with a donation from a Chinese Communist oligarch.
Susan Delacourt, a columnist for the Toronto Star, iPolitics, CTV, CBC Radio, and Global TV became a Trudeau Foundation mentor in 2016.
Andre Picard, the Globe and Mail health columnist, became a mentor in 2018. Marie Wilson, appointed to the CBC's board of directors in 2017, accepted a mentorship from the Trudeau Foundation in 2016.
The prime minister is accused of benefiting from help from the Chinese Communist Party during the 2019 and 2021 election campaigns. A CSIS whistleblower claims Liberal MP for Don Valley North, Han Dong, was selected by Beijing for victory, alleging CCP operatives intimidated seniors and foreign students to vote for Dong in his nomination race. The leaker also claims CSIS informed senior Liberal Party brass of the meddling, and the agency told the party to nullify the nomination win.
According to CSIS leaks, Liberal MP Han Dong was chosen by the Communist Chinese as their man in Toronto, one of 11 such China-installed candidates benefiting from foreign interference in Canada's electoral process since 2019.
— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) March 1, 2023
REPORT by @SheilaGunnReid: https://t.co/nqLV1HATA2
Trudeau is said to have intervened to keep Dong on the ballot.
Sheila Gunn Reid
Chief Reporter
Sheila Gunn Reid is the Alberta Bureau Chief for Rebel News and host of the weekly The Gunn Show with Sheila Gunn Reid. She's a mother of three, conservative activist, and the author of best-selling books including Stop Notley.