This politician wants Canada to cut funding to the Clinton Foundation to appease Trump

A controversial Member of Parliament says a $20 million grant from the Canadian government to a reproductive health initiative in Nigeria is “needlessly provocative” because it is being run by the Clinton Foundation.

Cheryl Gallant, a Conservative MP with a track record of outlandish remarks, made the comments in a video released on Monday.

“Trudeau is gambling Canadian jobs through his association to Hillary Clinton,” she says in the video.

The video, branded as a fake news show — GNN, for the Gallant News Network — primarily focuses on the Canadian government’s $10 million settlement with Omar Khadr, something she blasted earlier this month.

The MP, perhaps sarcastically, asks: “When Trudeau does something everybody knows would antagonize the U.S. president, should it be reported, or should it be covered it up, lest it finds its way into the U.S. media?”

Gallant provides an example.

“What should the media do when Trudeau is seen supporting someone the president considers a criminal?” she asks, as a photo of Trudeau and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appears over her shoulder. While she seems to be echoing the Trump chant of “lock her up” that was frequently deployed during the election, Clinton has never been charged with a crime.

Earlier in July, the Canadian government committed $20 million to the Clinton Health Access Initiative to fund sexual and reproductive health programs for women and girls in Nigeria. The health initiative falls under the guise of the Clinton Foundation, but is technically a separate entity.

“The decision by Justin Trudeau to give $20 million to a foundation set up by the Clintons, at this time, is reckless,” Gallant says in the video. “Trudeau must stop payment on the $20 million and reverse the decision immediately.”

On her constituency website, Gallant created a page entitled ‘Clinton Cash’ where she asked supporters: “Do you support Trudeau’s decision to give $20 million to the Clinton Foundation?”

Gallant called it “needlessly provocative,” given that the foundation was “at the heart of the cash-for-access scandal that stalked Hillary Clinton during her losing bid for the U.S. presidency.” Her video echoed an editorial from the Toronto Sun — at one point, repeating it nearly word-for-word — which came out against the $20 million grant. Other right-wing American news sites also latched onto the story.

Gallant’s representation of the Clinton Foundation was certainly a talking point for Donald Trump during his bid for the White House, but is based more in speculation than fact at this point.

While there have been consistent allegations that foreign governments contributed money to the Clinton Foundation in order to obtain favor from the former Secretary of State, there has been little evidence of actual wrongdoing. An FBI probe ultimately failed to produce any charges or indictments, as the Department of Justice felt that was a lack of evidence to justify proceeding.

Nevertheless, Republicans in the House of Representatives have been pushing to launch their own probe of the former Democratic candidate.

Gallant’s video comes amid some soul-searching in the Conservative Party about tone.

For weeks, the party has hammered Trudeau for his $10 million settlement with Khadr over the abuses he suffered during his detention by the U.S. in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. Khadr pled guilty to throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. Army medic and injured another soldier, but later said he did so only to escape imprisonment where he was held in solitary confinement.

However, some in the party have begun to openly worry whether the angry tone, which has played well on Fox News and Breitbart, is turning off Canadian voters.

VICE News reached out to the Conservative Party for comment on the contribution to the Clinton Foundation, but hasn’t heard back.

Gallant herself is no stranger to blunt, in some cases incendiary, comments.

In 2015, suggested that reforms to Ontario’s sexual education curriculum were designed to groom children for sexual exploitation. That same year, she launched a campaign against compact fluorescent lightbulbs and suggested that the mafia had gotten into the wind turbine business. VICE Canada put together a guide to her most controversial statements.