Politics Briefing: PM’s brother wants to appear before committee to defend foundation named for their father: report

Hello,

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s brother says he wants to appear before a parliamentary committee to “defend the reputation” of the embattled Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, according to a newspaper report.

In an interview with Le Devoir published Thursday, Alexandre Trudeau told the Quebec newspaper that he is ready to tell everything he knows about the foundation named for his father, the former prime minister.

Alexandre Trudeau says he has been heavily involved with the foundation over the last 20 years while his older brother, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has cut ties with the organization.

The Le Devoir report is here.

The Globe reported in February that the Chinese government had orchestrated $1-million in donations to the Trudeau Foundation and the University of Montreal law school in hopes of influencing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The foundation, which offers scholarships, fellowships and leadership programs, commemorates Mr. Trudeau’s father, former prime minister Pierre Trudeau.

The foundation has been subjected to scrutiny over the controversial donations from two wealthy Chinese businessmen, who were acting at the behest of the government of China.

Ted Johnson, the interim foundation chair, has written to federal Auditor-General Karen Hogan to request a formal audit of the non-profit organization, which was set up in 2002 with a $125-million endowment from the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien.

And federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has also written to Bob Hamilton, the commissioner of Revenue Canada, to request a “fulsome” audit of the charity “with a particular focus on the donation that has been subject to public reporting.”

There’s a story here on the challenges facing the Trudeau Foundation.

This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, written by Ian Bailey. It is available exclusively to our digital subscribers. If you're reading this on the web, subscribers can sign up for the Politics newsletter and more than 20 others on our newsletter signup page. Have any feedback? Let us know what you think.

TODAY'S HEADLINES

CANADIANS, OTHERS AIRLIFTED OUT OF SUDAN - Canada airlifted Canadians and citizens of other countries out of Khartoum, Sudan, in two flights on Thursday. The first flight carried 45 people and the second lifted 73 – far below their 100-evacuee capacity. Story here.

SANDERSON CAUSING HAVOC DAYS BEFORE DEADLY STABBING: RCMP - Mounties say the man accused of a deadly mass stabbing in Saskatchewan last year was selling drugs and causing havoc in the days before he drove throughout the First Nation and attacked and killed multiple people. Story here.

ONLINE STREAMING BILL EXPECTED TO BECOME LAW THURSDAY - A controversial government bill that would overhaul Canadian broadcasting laws to regulate streaming services is set to become law Thursday evening. Story here from CBC.

SAJJAN UNAWARE OF SENATOR SENDING TRAVEL DOCUMENTS TO AFGHANS BECAUSE HE WASN’T READING E-MAIL - Minister Harjit Sajjan says he wasn’t checking his e-mail during the 2021 fall of Afghanistan and it’s possible his inbox includes correspondence that a senator’s office was distributing Canadian government travel documents but he didn’t authorize the practice. Story here.

TWO MICHENER AWARD NOMINATIONS FOR GLOBE AND MAIL - The Globe and Mail has received two nominations for the 2022 Michener Award for meritorious public service journalism: investigative stories on Hockey Canada’s secret funds and the death of Traevon Desjarlais-Chalifoux. Story here.

FOREIGN-INTERFERENCE OFFICE NOT READY TO LAUNCH: MENDICINO - Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino says the Liberals are not ready to launch the foreign-interference office they promised in last month’s federal budget, amid ongoing scrutiny of allegations that Beijing interfered in recent federal elections. Story here.

PM IN NEW YORK - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in New York City to pitch America’s movers and shakers on the virtues of Canada as a trade and investment partner. Story here from CTV.

LABOUR MINISTER PROMISES BILL TO STOP FORCED-LABOUR IMPORTS - The federal Labour Minister is promising to introduce additional legislation next year to eradicate imports made with forced labour. Story here.

MOOSE HIDE CAMPAIGN HANDS OUT FOUR-MILLION PINS - One of the co-founders of the Moose Hide Campaign says the movement to draw attention to the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women along northern B.C.’s Highway of Tears has officially handed out four million pins. The goal is to give out 10 million pins. Story here from APTN.

WELLINGTON STREET TO REOPEN - For the first time since early 2022, Wellington Street in front of Parliament Hill is being reopened to traffic this Friday. Story here from CityNews.

THIS AND THAT

TODAY IN THE COMMONS – Projected Order of Business at the House of Commons, April 27, accessible here.

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER’S DAY - Chrystia Freeland, in Toronto, held private meetings and a roundtable discussion with energy and mining industry leaders. She also held a roundtable discussion with automotive and steel industry leaders. Both events were closed to the media.

GARRISON EXIT - Randall Garrison, the NDP MP for Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke in British Columbia, has announced he will not seek re-election after a dozen years in the Commons. Mr. Garrison has been the critic for justice and 2SLGBTQI+ rights and the deputy critic for national defence. He did not offer any specific reason for his exit in a statement Thursday announcing his exit.

MINISTERS IN OTTAWA - International Development Minister Harjit Sajjan announced $195-million over five years and $43.3-million annually thereafter, on an ongoing basis for women’s rights organizations across the globe.

Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos was to appear at standing health committee’s meeting on the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board.

Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino was to appear before a meeting on foreign election interference held by the standing committee on procedure and house affairs.

MINISTERS ON THE ROAD - Defence Minister Anita Anand, in Enfield, N.S., visited IMP Aerospace to announce a major subcontract as part of the $1.2-billion upgrade of the military’s fleet of search-and-rescue helicopters. (Story here)

PRIME MINISTER'S DAY

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in New York City attending the Global Citizen NOW conference, held private meetings, met with Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, and, with Ms. Mottley, co chaired a meeting with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Advocates. Mr. Trudeau attended a luncheon given by Global Citizen. In mid-afternoon, he was scheduled to meet with Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, and then participate in a Global Citizen NOW armchair discussion moderated by Lisa LaFlamme, the former CTV National News chief anchor. At the end of the day, Mr. Trudeau was scheduled to attend a reception given by Tom Clark, the Consul-General of Canada in New York City.

LEADERS

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, at a private residence in Mississauga, attends a party fundraising event.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, in Toronto, meets with representatives of the Amalgamated Transit Union to discuss safety on public transit, then speaks to the media about his concerns about transit safety, and speaks to the 2023 United Steelworkers Convention. The NDP leader then joins the CUPE 233 picket line.

No schedules available for other party leaders.

THE DECIBEL

Thursday’s edition of The Globe and Mail podcast features education reporter Caroline Alphonso on the subject of school food programs in Canada as they struggle to make ends meet. Ms. Alphonso talks about what’s happening with school food programs, why they’re so important and what might be done to fix the situation. The Decibel is here.

TRIBUTE

DARRELL NIGHT - Darrell Night, a Saulteaux First Nation bricklayer whose account of being abandoned by police early one freezing Saskatoon morning sparked a scandal that would engulf the city’s police force and shine a light on police mistreatment of Indigenous peoples, died on April 2 at age 56. His family gave the cause of death as heart failure. Story here.

PUBLIC OPINION

CANADIANS ON PSAC STRIKE - While Canadians are sympathetic to many demands of striking federal public-service workers, a majority also feel that federal employees are fairly or overly compensated, according to new research from the Angus Reid Institute. Details here.

OPINION

The Globe and Mail Editorial Board on how, only in Ottawa’s world, do you go on strike and still get paid: “Canadians needing a passport for a vacation are out of luck. Farmers are worried about exporting their grain. And ports in Vancouver and Montreal have been slowed. The pain from the national strike by federal public servants is escalating from irritation to significant disruption as the labour dispute grinds on through a second week, with no sign that the two sides are close to a compromise. But one group is likely to be insulated from any major hardship: the striking workers themselves. A combination of rickety payroll technology, bureaucratic inflexibility and clumsy bargaining by the government means that many – perhaps most – of the 100,000 or so striking workers will still receive their regular pay in two weeks.”

Andrew Coyne (The Globe and Mail) on how the world is growing tired of Canada’s freeloading on defence: “They are on to us. The only shocking thing about that bombshell Washington Post report, that Justin Trudeau privately told NATO officials Canada would “never” meet the NATO target for defence spending of 2 per cent of GDP, is how entirely unshocking it was – to anyone, least of all our NATO allies. You’d think it would be.”

Marsha Lederman (The Globe and Mail) on how Doug Ford’s plan for the Science Centre and Ontario Place – both childhood icons – demands an adult assessment: “Growing up in Toronto in the 1970s, the Ontario Science Centre and Ontario Place were formative. They were playgrounds and classrooms come to life – great places to grow. So yes, there is a degree of nostalgia driving the criticism of the plan to move the Science Centre to an Ontario Place that is being reimagined to feature waterslides, a wave pool and thermal bathing. But it’s not difficult to set your nostalgia and inner child aside to make an adult assessment of this plan.”

Keith Ambachtsheer (Contributed to The Globe and Mail) on the question of why the great pension system of Canadian civil servants can’t be expanded to us all: “In an aging world, the design and management of a country’s retirement income system becomes an increasingly important determinant of its future social and economic performance. The Mercer CFA Institute Global Pension Index ranks Canada’s system No. 11 out of 44 countries, ahead of many countries, but behind the Nordic nations, the Netherlands, Australia and Britain. What will it take for Canada to catch up with, or even surpass, these top countries in pension system quality? The answer is surprisingly obvious, but it will take extraordinary leadership efforts to get us from here to there. It follows from Canada already having one of the best occupational pension systems in the world for its public-sector workers.”

Got a news tip that you’d like us to look into? E-mail us at tips@globeandmail.com. Need to share documents securely? Reach out via SecureDrop.