FACT CHECK: Is Canada Donating Taxpayer Money To The Clinton Foundation?
A recent Toronto Sun editorial criticized the Canadian government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for donating $20 million Canadian dollars to the Clinton Foundation.
Verdict: True
Canadian government filings reveal Canadian tax dollars are indeed financing a foreign health initiative by an organization under the Clinton Foundation.
Fact Check:
The Toronto Sun editorial, published July 12, was titled, “Canada Shouldn’t Donate to the Clinton Foundation.”
The editorial voiced concern with the Canadian government’s decision to “hand $20 million over” to the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), a charity under the Clinton Foundation umbrella. The editorial went on to describe the nonprofit organization as “the heart of the cash-for-access scandal” that “dogged” Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.
The Liberal Party government, led by Trudeau, reiterated Canada’s commitment to foreign aid and development in its 2017 budget. A significant component of this global commitment is the budget’s $650 million Canadian dollar (CAD) earmark for foreign aid to specifically “address gaps in sexual and reproductive health and rights in the world’s poorest and most vulnerable communities.”
A spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada, department of the Canadian government, confirmed to The Daily Caller News Foundation that CHAI submitted an “Unsolicited proposal” for public Canadian funds. The $20 million CAD grant that CHAI received will be used for a four-year project in Nigeria to “improve access to SRH [sexual and reproductive health] choices for young women and adolescent girls” with public and private partners, as per Global Affairs Canada’s website.
These initiatives fall under Canada’s explicit “feminist international assistance policy,” as stated by the Canadian government. Foreign aid administered by Global Affairs Canada thus seeks to support sex education, family planning, and abortion access across the world.
Both Canadian and international organizations are eligible to receive these funds to advance the government’s goals, a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada told TheDCNF.
The sexual and reproductive health project isn’t the first Clinton Foundation-affiliated project that the Canadian government has funded. Canada has previously committed or granted $19.2 million CAD to CHAI for a vaccination project, $14.2 million CAD for a dysentery treatment project, and $460,000 CAD to a tuberculosis research project.
Unsolicited proposals – like the kind CHAI submitted for its most recent $20 million CAD grant – are “assessed using an established process and criteria,” the spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada told TheDCNF. These proposals must include signed agreements relating to procurement, financial recording, and conflict of interest policies as well as an anti-corruption declaration.
The Clinton Foundation has been at the center of a controversy surrounding Hillary Clinton after it was revealed that the charity accepted foreign contributions from Canada as well as from Australia, Germany, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The Wall Street Journal reported on this controversy in 2016, revealing that the Foundation accepted nearly $500,000 from a Canadian government agency that was tasked with promoting the Keystone XL pipeline proposal.
Discussions about any controversy and donations to the Clinton Foundation aside, claims that Canadian tax dollars are financing Clinton Foundation initiatives are true.
The Clinton Foundation did not respond to TheDCNF for comment.
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