Auditor-General’s office says it can’t probe Trudeau Foundation donation from Chinese benefactors

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The Auditor-General’s office says it cannot investigate a controversial donation to the publicly backed Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation from two wealthy Chinese businessmen acting at the behest of the government of China.

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

Natasha Leduc, a spokeswoman for the Office of the Auditor-General of Canada, said Monday that such a probe is not within the Auditor-General’s remit.

“It would be outside the Auditor-General’s authority to examine the source of private donations, the identity of other donors or their motivations,” Ms. Leduc said in an e-mailed statement.

The foundation’s board of directors and its president and chief executive, Pascale Fournier, resigned April 11, citing the political backlash over the Beijing-linked donation.

The Globe and Mail reported in February that the Chinese government had orchestrated $1-million in donations to the 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.

A national security source, whom The Globe is not naming because they risk prosecution under the Security of Information Act, said the Canadian Security Intelligence Service intercepted a 2014 conversation between Chinese billionaire Zhang Bin and a Chinese commercial attaché in Canada. The diplomat told Mr. Zhang that Beijing would reimburse him for the $1-million in donations, according to the source. Ultimately, $200,000 was pledged to the foundation, of which only $140,000 was received.

The foundation asked for the audit to help clear the controversy around the money. “Two donations totalling $140,000, made in 2016 and 2017, have become a matter of public controversy since media reports in March of a possible link to the Chinese government,” Mr. Johnson wrote in an April 14 letter to Ms. Hogan.

“In these circumstances the Foundation would welcome an investigation by the Auditor-General of Canada of all aspects concerning the receipt and handling of these donations by the Foundation.”

The Auditor-General’s office said Monday that it could only examine whether the foundation “accepted or handled donations in accordance with the terms and conditions of the endowment agreement” granted by Ottawa.

In 2016, nine months after Justin Trudeau’s Liberals won a majority government, the Trudeau Foundation and the University of Montreal publicly identified Mr. Zhang and Niu Gensheng as the donors behind the $1-million in donations. The men pledged the $200,000 to the foundation, $750,000 to the law school, where Pierre Trudeau studied and taught, and $50,000 for a statue of the former prime minister that was never built.

As The Globe first reported in 2016, Mr. Zhang is part of the China Cultural Industry Association, a state-backed group in Beijing that aims to build “the soft power of Chinese culture” globally.

Mr. Trudeau has said, through his office, that he ended his involvement in the foundation after he was elected Liberal Leader in 2013.

However, La Presse reported Monday that in April, 2016, six months after the Liberals won the election, the foundation held a roundtable on “the links between pluralism, diversity and economic prosperity” on the fourth floor of the Langevin Building, which also houses the office of the Prime Minister. The roundtable brought together Morris Rosenberg, then-president and CEO of the foundation, and the deputy ministers of five different departments.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has asked 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.”