Wendy Yuan, who was rejected as a Liberal candidate, says she believed she had earned her degree in 1987, but recntly found one course was partly incomplete and she did the work requested to earn the degree this past spring.

OTTAWA — A high-profile B.C. federal Liberal and international businesswoman has incorrectly claimed for years that she received a graduate degree in international management from a U.S. university, The Vancouver Sun has learned.

That was the rationale used by the Liberal party to deny Wendy Yuan, who ran for the party in Vancouver Kingsway in 2008 and 2011, the chance to seek the 2015 nomination in Steveston-Richmond East.

A spokesperson for Bradley University in Illinois confirmed this week that Yuan did not obtain a masters in “international management” in 1987 — a claim made on Yuan’s website in her recent nomination battle, and in the 2008 and 2011 elections.

“Wendy Yuan attended Bradley from spring 1986 through summer of 1987, and spring of 2015. She received her master of arts degree in May of 2015,” spokesperson Renee Charles said in an email Thursday. “She majored in educational administration.”

But Yuan said in a statement Friday that “to the best of my recollection” she thought she had completed her program in 1987, but never intended to pick up “either my transcript or diploma certificate. Since I was working in my own business, I had no need of either.”

When the Liberals asked her earlier this year for proof of the degree she said she contacted the university and was told one course she needed to graduate was marked “in progress” in her transcript. While she believed this was an error, she said she was told the designation couldn’t be removed since the professor had died.

To finish, she said she was asked to write an essay on multiculturalism, received an A, and that resulted in her finally getting her degree in May.

The university was asked to verify this version of events, but did not respond by The Sun’s deadline.

Yuan sent The Sun a copy of the degree Friday, along with a photograph of her at the 1987 convocation ceremony at the university.

Asked why she didn’t push the university long ago for her diploma, she replied: “Because I did not need it. I always worked for myself … nobody had asked me for that piece of paper, nobody.”

She said the claim that her degree was an MA in “international management” was based on the fact she took business as well as education courses at Bradley, but primarily came from a “translation issue” from Chinese to English while “conveying my background” to her campaign biography writer.

Party spokesman Olivier Duchesneau, who wouldn’t disclose the specific reason why Yuan was disqualified, said earlier this week that the party is more aggressively screening candidates. That explains, he said, why the party had a problem with Yuan’s application even though she was given the green light in two previous campaigns as the candidate in Vancouver Kingsway.

Yuan’s camp, supported by affidavits from a former Vancouver Kingsway campaign volunteer, maintains the party blocked her candidacy over her internal dispute with former Liberal cabinet minister Ray Chan, Justin Trudeau’s top fundraiser in the Chinese-Canadian community.

“I feel strongly that allegations of misrepresentation are being used as a red herring to mask the real undisclosed reason for the rejection of her candidacy application,” said her lawyer, Gary Matson.