February 13, 2025
Canada’s most senior diplomat owes China $1.2 million. He’s vulnerable
When you owe someone more than $1 million, as does Francois-Philippe Champagne at the Bank of China, the potential for influence and abuse is ever-present.
When you owe someone more than $1 million, as does Francois-Philippe Champagne at the Bank of China, the potential for influence and abuse is ever-present.

When François-Philippe Champagne was promoted to minister of foreign affairs in a Cabinet shuffle last November, he received his marching orders from Justin Trudeau in the form of a mandate letter.

“The arrangement of your private affairs should bear the closest public scrutiny,” Champagne was advised. “This is an obligation that is not fully discharged by simply acting within the law.”

In that context, the revelation in the Globe and Mail that Champagne has two mortgages, with an outstanding balance of $1.2 million, with the state-owned Bank of China is stupefying.

It’s true, the arrangement has been hidden in full public view on Champagne’s public disclosure statement with the Ethics Commissioner since he became a minister in 2015.

But there’s a qualitative difference to holding mortgages with a Chinese bank when you are infrastructure minister, or even trade minister, and being indebted to Communist China as Canada’s most senior diplomat.

The mortgages were arranged on two properties in London, England, in 2009 and 2013, before Champagne entered politics and was working in the U.K. As a temporary resident, he said he was unable to secure a mortgage with a British bank.

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(2) Cut government salaries to preserve public services: Report

(3) Even the Nicest Country in the World Doesn’t Like China

(4) Systemic racism exists within the RCMP, says Trudeau as commissioner struggles with definition

(5) Freeland says police must acknowledge racism after senior RCMP officer’s denial