Thank you, Chairman. I'll try to stay within that constraint.
The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation is a non-partisan charitable scholarship foundation that was created in 2002 with broad cross-party support in the House of Commons. The first board of directors included Bill Davis, Roy Romanow and Peter Lougheed. It was granted a $125-million endowment by the government.
Since then, it has spent some $95 million on programs, plus approximately another $20 million to $25 million on delivering those programs, on the administrative side. In total, that's an amount that's pretty close to the original endowment. During that time, we have provided 295 doctoral scholarships, plus mentorships and fellowships—88 fellowships and 163 mentorships. We achieved that without touching the capital, which now stands at $145 million. We have not asked for a cent of new money from the government in 21 years.
Today we rank up there with Rhodes, MacArthur and Fulbright as a sought-after scholarship. Many of our scholars say their involvement was life changing.
Our directors and members are all volunteers. The Trudeau family has no financial interest whatsoever in the foundation.
The foundation, over the past 21 years, is doing what it was supposed to do with the taxpayers' money. In tight compliance with our funding agreement, we deliver a very simple, four-point program: scholarships, mentorships, fellowships and a public interaction program. We are meant to make a significant contribution to the future of Canada, and we have delivered to the letter.
The foundation has been subjected to unwarranted and unfair attacks, which began in late February, revolving around a donation totalling $140,000 from a Chinese Canadian entity. These put huge pressure on the board of directors. In this context, let me note on record for this committee that we were never offered $1 million, and we never received any red flags from CSIS.
It's important that I respond to some earlier testimony by our former president and three former directors at the House ethics committee.
At no time did any director receive a legal opinion that they were in a conflict of interest involving the 2014 to 2017 Chinese donation.
In my case, I didn't need a legal opinion to tell me what I instinctively knew. I was on the board at the time of those donations, so I should not be involved in the oversight of any outside review of them, although my potential conflict of interest might have been purely perceived, not legal. At no time did I resist or attempt to narrow such an independent review.
Indeed, within 10 days of the first news story, I urged that we needed an independent review and that it should be overseen not by management and not by me, but by a special committee of three directors who had had no involvement whatsoever in the foundation in the years 2014 to 2017. I phoned every board member individually in mid-March and discussed this. On March 24, I remarked to our lawyers how supportive our directors were of our president and me in the trying circumstances of intense national attention.
I proposed oversight by an independent committee at the full board meeting on March 31. As to my eligibility to chair that meeting, there is no doubt that my interests aligned perfectly with the interests of the foundation. I wanted an independent review and so did the rest of the board. It was my duty, as chair, to preside.
There were two outside lawyers from two firms advising the board at that meeting. Both said that they had not given opinions on conflicts of interest. Neither they nor any director questioned my legitimacy to chair or to vote at that meeting. At no point was there a motion for any directors to recuse themselves, nor was there any refusal to do so by any director.
Over the subsequent week, by Easter Thursday, a consensus emerged among most directors, in my view, that indeed the outside review should be overseen by a special committee of three, as I had originally recommended, and that the review should not report to management. To my utter surprise and disappointment, the board resigned on Easter Monday—April 10.
Knowing that those resignations would stall any outside review for weeks, I wrote the Auditor General on April 14, three days after the board resignations, to ask her to investigate all aspects of the receipt and handling of these donations by the foundation.
Finally, for our scholars, mentors and fellows, I want to say a special word to them and to our marvellous team at the foundation and to our community. Looking ahead, the Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation will continue to provide its outstanding academic program. Thanks to the volunteers on our finance committee, we continue to be well financed. Our excellent team is working ahead on the announcement of our next cohort and planned leadership development events.
It's an exciting future heading into our 23rd year.
Thank you.
