Ex-CEO of Trudeau Foundation Morris Rosenberg set to testify at House committee

Former Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation CEO Morris Rosenberg is set to testify Tuesday on foreign interference at the House ethics committee.

The Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics has been studying foreign interference and threats to Canada’s democratic institutions since mid-March, building on the work of another House committee given the heightened scrutiny of foreign interference attempts in Canada’s elections.

Rosenberg, a former long-time public servant, was CEO of the Trudeau Fondation when it accepted $140,000 in donations from a Chinese billionaire and a Chinese businessman with ties to the regime in Beijing.

Rosenberg was also later tapped by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to author a report on attempts to interfere in the 2021 federal election. Rosenberg concluded that, while attempts were made, the panel whose work he was assessing “did not detect foreign interference that threatened Canada’s ability to have free and fair elections.”

His testimony will come amid a slew of other witness accounts before the committee with ties to the Trudeau Foundation.

The foundation’s most recent CEO, Pascale Fournier — who along with the rest of the organization’s board of directors resigned last month — testified before the same committee last week.

The Canadian Press reported Fournier said she resigned from her position because of a breakdown in trust on the board of directors, and that she had pushed for an independent forensic audit into the donations, a move that caused tension between board members.

The foundation later issued a statement saying that it “strongly contests” several aspects of Fournier’s testimony, namely “some of the facts or their interpretation,” the internal governance process of the organization, and the circumstances around the board of directors’ mass resignation.

The prime minister’s brother, Alexandre Trudeau, is also set to testify before the committee on Wednesday. He was a member of the foundation’s board of directors when the donations were made.