Will All Parties Support Probe Into Politicization of CRA Charity Audits?

July 19, 2014 No comments Article
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Sorry for the inter­rup­tion in blog post­ings; I’ve been trav­el­ling these past two days, largely out of wifi range and not in con­trol of my sched­ule. Bad timing.

Before board­ing the plane, I got the news that a fed­eral party had asked ques­tions in Par­lia­ment directly related to the find­ings in my the­sis.

NDP rev­enue critic Mur­ray Rankin and envi­ron­ment critic Megan Leslie called for an inde­pen­dent probe into the Canada Rev­enue Agency’s audit­ing of char­i­ties for their polit­i­cal activities.

In a July 16 let­ter to gov­ern­ment Rev­enue Min­is­ter Kerry-Lynne Find­lay Rankin and Leslie write that they “fear that the evi­dence strongly sug­gests that the Con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment has been mis­us­ing the CRA to tar­get its polit­i­cal oppo­nents.” Cana­dian Press reports that Findlay’s office re-released a state­ment deny­ing any polit­i­cal inter­fer­ence with CRA.

My the­sis find­ings, which were widely pub­lished in Cana­dian media in two reports writ­ten by Cana­dian Press deputy-bureau chief Dean Beeby, found that the tar­get­ing by CRA has extended beyond envi­ron­men­tal char­i­ties to also include inter­na­tional development/human rights orga­ni­za­tions and char­i­ties receiv­ing sig­nif­i­cant funds from labour unions. Beeby’s own leg­work found that anti-poverty orga­ni­za­tions are also being caught up in the audits.

The audit­ing, in short, seems to tar­get char­i­ties of a “pro­gres­sive” nature that have dif­fer­ent ideas about the best pub­lic poli­cies for Canada than does the cur­rent fed­eral cabinet.

Pre­vi­ous researchers have warned that politi­ciza­tion of the CRA is under­way and that this is not in line with West­ern demo­c­ra­tic val­ues and will dam­age our inter­na­tional rep­u­ta­tion. My the­sis pointed to a “fun­nel” cre­ated by the gov­ern­ment that more or less pushes CRA toward audit­ing cer­tain charities.

That fun­nel includes increased fund­ing for audit­ing of char­i­ties’ “polit­i­cal activ­i­ties” (which, though seem­ingly almost uni­ver­sally below the 10% of a charity’s resources that the cur­rent reg­u­la­tions allowed, tend to be higher in some char­ity sec­tors than oth­ers), and the pres­ence of com­plaint let­ters from Eth­i­cal Oil in the CRA files of char­i­ties that are directly or indi­rectly involved in issues of cli­mate change, oil­sands expan­sion, pipelines, tankers, and ecosys­tem impacts of those indus­trial activities).

Also impor­tant is that Eth­i­cal Oil, an aggres­sive pri­vate activist orga­ni­za­tions, was founded by a staffer of min­is­ter Jason Ken­ney who left to set up the orga­ni­za­tion and then returned to serve the party in the Prime Minister’s Office.

Any gov­ern­ment has a vari­ety of state tools at its dis­posal that can, but should not, be used to short-circuit debate and cit­i­zen par­tic­i­pa­tion in order to force through its own pol­icy agenda. Those include the army, police, secu­rity appa­ra­tus, and tax author­ity. Even use of access to the media that gov­ern­ment min­is­ters enjoy to a level far above that of oth­ers should not be used to let loose with rhetoric that, for exam­ple, con­flates char­i­ties, money-laundering, crim­i­nal orga­ni­za­tions and ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions as has hap­pened repeat­edly since 2012.

The audits and asso­ci­ated rhetoric on the part of the cur­rent fed­eral gov­ern­ment is hav­ing an impact on the abil­ity of char­i­ties to carry out their Mis­sions. It is affect­ing some organization’s com­mu­ni­ca­tion about issues that Cana­di­ans very much needs to dis­cuss widely and deeply, and so is nar­row­ing society’s con­ver­sa­tions. And in cre­at­ing the fun­nel and dis­tract­ing char­i­ties from their impor­tant social pur­pose as civil-society par­tic­i­pants, idea gen­er­a­tors, alter­na­tive voices, the government’s actions are reduc­ing the vigor of our democracy.

So, it’s good to see a polit­i­cal party weigh into the debate. It’s a fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple of democ­racy that politi­cians do not cor­rupt the neu­tral­ity of the admin­is­tra­tive func­tions and indi­vid­ual bureau­crats through politi­ciza­tion. I would think that all polit­i­cal par­ties have a long-term invest­ment in that, includ­ing the party now in power.

Mean­while, check out my Master’s the­sis and feel free to for­ward and tweet it.

I am a for­mer jour­nal­ist and media man­ager who recently com­pleted my Master’s the­sis for Royal Roads Uni­ver­sity and now work as a com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­fes­sional. I have earned a Web­ster Award of Dis­tinc­tion, among other awards, for my reporting.

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Political Activities by Charities Legal and Good For Society

July 17, 2014 No comments Article
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I’ve been watch­ing the com­ments sec­tions of news reports and columns run­ning on some of the larger media web­sites. And I notice a con­sis­tent piece of mis­in­for­ma­tion creep­ing in: that char­i­ties are not allowed to engage in polit­i­cal activ­i­ties. That’s sim­ply not true.

One con­trib­u­tor below Carol Goar’s excel­lent col­umn (and I say excel­lent not just because she quotes me and sends read­ers to my web­site and online the­sis, of course) of today (July 16), sug­gested that it was not the role of char­i­ties to be involved in “polit­i­cal activ­i­ties.” Those who do, sug­gested the con­trib­u­tor, “should not be sup­ported by tax­payer dol­lars via tax deduc­tions.” Fur­ther, sug­gested the writer, “there are plenty of orga­ni­za­tions out there play­ing fast and loose with our money.”

Whether or not this con­trib­u­tor is a party oper­a­tives post­ing in an effort to deflect crit­i­cism (all par­ties have their paid staff and over-enthusiastic vol­un­teers, of course), I think the point is wor­thy of direct atten­tion. Here goes:

  • Cur­rent reg­u­la­tions and inter­pre­ta­tions allow char­i­ties to par­tic­i­pate in “polit­i­cal activ­i­ties” as defined by Canada Rev­enue Agency up to a limit of 10 per­cent (20 per­cent for smaller char­i­ties) of the charity’s resources — staff and vol­un­teer time and budget;
  • This is because CRA has for some years now rec­og­nized that soci­ety ben­e­fits when charities—who are experts in their areas of work—participate in society’s con­ver­sa­tions but not as their pri­mary activity;
  • Char­i­ties are restricted to com­ment­ing on mat­ters that are in line with their offi­cially rec­og­nized “purpose”—relief of poverty, advance­ment of edu­ca­tion, advance­ment of reli­gion, or other pur­poses that the courts have upheld as an appro­pri­ate ben­e­fit to the community.

Char­i­ties are not, how­ever, allowed to par­tic­i­pate in “par­ti­san activ­i­ties” like call­ing for the ouster of the cur­rent gov­ern­ment, endors­ing spe­cific par­ties or can­di­dates and that sort of thing.

One way to think about it is this:

  • If a can­cer char­ity funds a study that finds that expo­sure to second-hand smoke is asso­ci­ated with increased rates of can­cer, it is “char­i­ta­ble activ­ity” if that char­ity holds a press con­fer­ence, announces that the find­ings sug­gest that the gov­ern­ment should out­law smok­ing in work­places. As a “char­i­ta­ble activ­ity,” the char­ity can pur­sue this approach to its heart’s content;
  • If that char­ity then sends emails to its mem­bers or tweets the gen­eral pub­lic and asks them to con­tact their MP to ask for leg­is­la­tion out­law­ing smok­ing in the work­place, they are par­tic­i­pat­ing in allow­able “polit­i­cal activ­i­ties” if the topic and com­mu­ni­ca­tion fits their “purpose;”
  • If that char­ity uses an intem­per­ate tone in crit­i­ciz­ing cur­rent gov­ern­ment pol­icy, or sug­gests peo­ple vote for another party in the next elec­tion in order to get leg­is­la­tion against work­place smok­ing, this is for­bid­den “par­ti­san activ­i­ties” and the char­ity is vul­ner­a­ble to a spank­ing by CRA or loss of its char­i­ta­ble sta­tus if there’s a his­tory of this.

I bet you can see the grey areas. Char­i­ties cer­tainly do and some are con­fused. So fac­ing a politi­cized audit­ing process, they are con­sult­ing lawyers, hold­ing sem­i­nars, care­fully mea­sur­ing their var­i­ous activ­i­ties to ensure they stay under 10 per­cent “polit­i­cal activ­i­ties,” and chang­ing the con­tent, tone fre­quency, and chan­nels of communication—all of which are a diver­sion of time and money and vigor away from the mis­sion that their mem­bers, and per­haps soci­ety in gen­eral, expects them to focus on.

And please note that the char­ity sec­tor umbrella group, Imag­ine Canada, found in a 2010 study that 37 per­cent of char­i­ties engage in “polit­i­cal activ­ity.” How do you think we got drunk-driving leg­is­la­tion, smok­ing reg­u­la­tions, and emis­sions reg­u­la­tions that reduced the acid rain destroy­ing our lakes? Though many char­i­ties dab­ble in polit­i­cal activ­i­ties, both char­ity lead­ers and indus­try experts I spoke to agreed that few come any­where near their 10 per­cent limit. The stepped-up audits, in short, are a solu­tion in search of a non-existent prob­lem; unless, that is, there’s another agenda at work on the part of elected officials.

Those grey areas I men­tioned above have been around a long time and have not been fully clar­i­fied by CRA, which puts orga­ni­za­tions under unac­cept­able stress. Per­haps senior man­darins and cab­i­net min­is­ters like it that way; I don’t know. And there’s a poten­tial loom­ing prob­lem: orga­ni­za­tions that have been going through audits, and some of which have repeat­edly passed audits in their his­tory, believe that the above def­i­n­i­tions of “polit­i­cal activ­i­ties” and “par­ti­san activ­i­ties” are being rein­ter­preted by audi­tors right now.

But here’s the nub: Some sug­gest that some of the audi­tors are inter­pret­ing any crit­i­cism of the poli­cies of the cur­rent gov­ern­ment is being seen as “polit­i­cal activ­ity.” Of course, that is absurd and against the spirit of cur­rent reg­u­la­tions and will no doubt end up in the courts if that’s where CRA is head­ing. That inter­pre­ta­tion would essen­tially move from the cur­rent “muf­fling” of char­ity voices that I found in my the­sis research to a full-fledged vir­tual “silenc­ing” of the voices of these experts. We need these experts to speak up in our national con­ver­sa­tions to ensure we make the best pos­si­ble pol­icy deci­sions for our country.

I guess we will soon see if their fears are cor­rect. Audit results are trick­ling out. Char­i­ties will undoubt­edly share their find­ings if we’re enter­ing such a period. But given that there doesn’t appear to be a deep-seated prob­lem here with regard to “polit­i­cal activ­i­ties,” why would the gov­ern­ment step-up audit­ing and accom­pany it with stri­dent anti-charity rhetoric? That will have to wait for another post.

Mean­while, check out my Master’s the­sis.

I am a for­mer jour­nal­ist and media man­ager who recently com­pleted my Master’s the­sis for Royal Roads Uni­ver­sity and now work as a com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­fes­sional. I have earned a Web­ster Award of Dis­tinc­tion, among other awards, for my reporting.

Categories: Uncategorized

Charities Muffled & Distracted by Government Actions: Chill

July 11, 2014 No comments Article
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Check out my newly com­pleted the­sis, now posted to www.garethkirkby.ca. I looked at how char­i­ties are affected by fed­eral Cana­dian cab­i­net min­is­ters seem­ingly sug­gest­ing that they are crim­i­nal orga­ni­za­tions and ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions and work­ing against the inter­ests of their coun­try. And how they are being affected by the fed­eral government’s new reg­u­la­tions gov­ern­ing char­i­ties and the stepped up audits of the “polit­i­cal activ­i­ties” of these charities.

I won­dered: Is the gov­ern­ment action caus­ing a chill among char­i­ties, divert­ing them from speak­ing out about the issues they know so well, effec­tively muf­fling their voices at a time when we most need to hear from them?

And I looked at whether some kinds of char­i­ties are being tar­geted for atten­tion, and what that really means. I exam­ined why this is hap­pen­ing, and hap­pen­ing now, and what the impli­ca­tions of putting char­i­ties under the micro­scope are for pub­lic dis­cus­sions about the choices we have in our eco­nomic, devel­op­ment, human rights, and envi­ron­men­tal policies.

Most of us have our favourite char­i­ties that we donate to and wish the best for. Per­haps you view char­i­ties as experts—not the only experts, but experts just the same—in the issues con­nected to their Mis­sion? And per­haps you believe that we need the best minds, from a cross-section of soci­ety includ­ing char­i­ties and research insti­tutes and non­profit orga­ni­za­tions, to par­tic­i­pate in the big debates about impor­tant issues? Their par­tic­i­pa­tion, and that of civil soci­ety gen­er­ally, ensures that the best ideas rise to the top so that we as a soci­ety make the best all-around decisions.

My the­sis explores issues like these, based on 21 inter­views I con­ducted with lead­ers of some of Canada’s best-known and some­times less-known char­i­ties, and with other experts on char­i­ties, law, gov­ern­ment admin­is­tra­tion, and secu­rity and policing.

In a series of blog post­ings, I’ll share with you what I learned, explor­ing the issues raised in the the­sis, and also includ­ing insights from my data that never made it into the the­sis but should be dis­cussed in pub­lic. And I’ll com­ment on cur­rent events through the prism of my research and inter­ests in pub­lic con­ver­sa­tions, civil soci­ety, and social movements.

Oh, and yes, I did find out that there is indeed an “advo­cacy chill,” that affects dif­fer­ent char­i­ties to var­i­ous extents. We are not fully get­ting the inclu­sive pub­lic dis­cus­sion about top­i­cal and often con­tro­ver­sial issues that we ought to have, that we as Cana­di­ans need to have if our democ­racy is going to be vig­or­ous, and pol­icy deci­sions the best available.

But more on that in the next posting.

Check out my the­sis: www.garethkirkby.ca

I am a for­mer jour­nal­ist and media man­ager who recently com­pleted my Master’s the­sis for Royal Roads Uni­ver­sity and now work as a com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­fes­sional. I have been awarded a Web­ster Award of Dis­tinc­tion, among other awards, for my reporting.

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