Will All Parties Support Finance Committee Hearings on Audits?

August 7, 2014 No comments Article
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Cana­dian Press and the Toronto Star yes­ter­day ran reports that the fed­eral NDP wants to recall Parliament’s finance com­mit­tee this sum­mer to dis­cuss politi­ciza­tion of the ‘polit­i­cal activ­i­ties’ audits of char­i­ties by Canada Rev­enue Agency.

The CP report para­phrased NDP finance critic Mur­ray Rankin say­ing pub­lic hear­ings before the finance com­mit­tee “would give besieged char­i­ta­ble groups a safe venue to speak out with­out appear­ing to pro­voke the tax agency.”

Said Rankin in a direct quote: “It wouldn’t be as if they’ve gone to the press and spilled the beans. … We can’t let this fes­ter much longer. We’ve got to clear the air. It’s bad for the rep­u­ta­tion of the CRA and it’s bad for the envi­ron­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions and other char­i­ties that are some­how under a shadow.”

Rankin has a point and I hope that other polit­i­cal par­ties are lis­ten­ing. In my MA the­sis research, I inter­viewed 16 char­ity lead­ers (in five provinces and five dif­fer­ent char­ity sectors—environment being only one) and five charity-sector experts (lawyers, for­mer bureau­crats, umbrella orga­ni­za­tion staff, aca­d­e­mics, fundrais­ing experts).

The large major­ity, includ­ing to my sur­prise three of five experts, required com­plete con­fi­den­tial­ity in order to speak to me. That’s because they are afraid that if their name, or that of their orga­ni­za­tion, can be deduced they risk draw­ing the ire of the tax­man or the gov­ern­ment. In my the­sis analy­sis using grounded the­ory, and in inter­views with media and my own pub­lic writ­ings, I have done my best to rep­re­sent their expe­ri­ences, shared facts, emo­tions, and opinions.

It also bears not­ing that some inter­view par­tic­i­pants were very happy to be directly iden­ti­fied or deducible to some­one who knows their orga­ni­za­tions very well, because they con­sider the rhetoric and actions of the cur­rent fed­eral gov­ern­ment extreme and bad for Cana­dian policy-making and the vigor of democ­racy itself. In any case, it was dif­fi­cult find­ing 16 char­ity lead­ers will­ing to take a chance on a Master’s stu­dent pro­tect­ing their orga­ni­za­tions, and hence their mem­bers, sup­port­ers, donors and, most impor­tantly, Missions.

Appear­ing before a Par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee to share their organization’s sto­ries could be just the ticket to ensure pub­lic pro­tec­tion. Yes, they would be putting it on the line and very pub­licly. But also, yes, the pub­lic and politi­cians would know who they are and, I sus­pect, sur­round them in a pro­tec­tive blan­ket for years, per­haps decades, into the future regard­less of which party is in power. Of course, that’s easy for me to say and hard for them to do.

But orga­ni­za­tions that step for­ward might per­haps become de-facto untouch­able after tes­ti­fy­ing before a Par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee. Woe to the audi­tor or politi­cian who strays over the line and tar­gets them in rhetoric or deed, or tries to re-interpret def­i­n­i­tions and reg­u­la­tions in order to threaten their char­i­ta­ble sta­tus, or to “muf­fle” and “dis­tract” them as my research dis­cov­ered is now happening.

In any case, it’s good to see the NDP take this on. Rankin had already called sev­eral weeks ago for an inde­pen­dent spe­cial inves­ti­ga­tion into politi­ciza­tion of the audit process, headed by a retired judge or sim­i­lar per­son of expe­ri­ence and stature.

I’m won­der­ing where the Lib­er­als are in all this? And the Bloc Que­be­cois? The Greens? Inde­pen­dents and the Inde­pen­dent Conservative?

For that mat­ter, where are the back-bench Con­ser­v­a­tives? The role of char­i­ties in soci­ety as providers of socially needed ser­vices, and as inde­pen­dent experts on pub­lic pol­icy, fits very tightly with tra­di­tional con­ser­v­a­tive thought and values.

It’s sum­mer, of course, and even politi­cians need a break, and we a break from them. But read­ing the com­ments from read­ers to news sto­ries tells me that Cana­di­ans care about how their char­i­ties are treated by gov­ern­ment, and about the government’s politi­ciza­tion of the nation’s admin­is­tra­tive arms to fight oppo­nents of its policies.

Mean­while, please check out my Master’s the­sis and feel free to for­ward and tweet it. And you can fol­low me on Twit­ter: @garethkirkby

 

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 the Jack Web­ster Award of Dis­tinc­tion, among oth­ers, for my report­ing and editing.

Categories: Uncategorized

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.

Categories: Uncategorized