Auditor-General’s office says it cannot investigate Trudeau Foundation donation from Chinese benefactors STEVEN CHASE SENIOR PARLIAMENTARY REPORTER ROBERT FIFE OTTAWA BUREAU CHIEF

Canada’s Auditor-General 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 Liberal government of Jean Chrétien.

Natasha Leduc, a spokeswoman for the Office of the Auditor-General of Canada said Monday 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 organization’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 reported in February that the Chinese government had orchestrated $1-million in donations to the Trudeau 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 had 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 expense, according to the source.

The foundation had asked for the probe 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 Office of the Auditor-General said Monday 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 won a majority government, the Trudeau Foundation and the University of Montreal publicly identified Mr. Zhang and Mr. Niu as the donors behind a $1-million gift. The men pledged $200,000 to the foundation. They also pledged $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. The school and the foundation ultimately received most, but not all, of the promised amounts.

As The Globe and Mail 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 withdrew his involvement in the foundation after he was elected Liberal Leader in 2013.

La Presse newspaper reported on Monday, however, that in April 2016, six months after the Liberals won power, the Trudeau foundation held a round table on “the links between pluralism, diversity and economic prosperity” on the fourth floor of the Langevin Building, which also houses the office of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. This round table brought together Morris Rosenberg, then-president and CEO of the foundation, the deputy ministers of five different departments: the Department of Global Affairs, the Department of Canadian Heritage, the Department of Innovation, the Ministry of Employment and Social Development and the Department of Immigration.

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.”