Hon. Leo Housakos: My question is for the government leader in the Senate. Senator Gold, I want to take you back to a dinner I asked your predecessor about in November of 2016. None other than Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was the headliner, shall we say, at this intimate, cash-for-access dinner at the private Toronto residence of an individual with close ties to the communist regime in Beijing. Someone else with close ties to that regime was also in attendance — Mr. Zhang Bin. He’s important because he’s the one under whose name — or so we were told — a sizeable donation was made to the Trudeau Foundation just weeks following that infamous dinner.

As a foreign citizen, neither Mr. Zhang nor Beijing’s communist regime — or any other foreign entity — can make political donations in Canada. However, they seem to have found a way around those pesky Canadian electoral laws by essentially laundering such a donation through the foundation bearing the Prime Minister’s name. The Prime Minister claims he’s not involved in the foundation, but a lot of suspicions have arisen. It was actually the Prime Minister’s brother who signed and issued the receipt for what we now know was an illegal donation.

My question for you, Senator Gold, is this: Will the Prime Minister do the right thing and formally cease all involvement with the foundation, or will he continue to use it as a scheme to leverage for his government and for the electoral benefit of the Liberal Party of Canada?