Media

North-South Insti­tute Lat­est Vic­tim of Gov­ern­ment Funding

Two stories—the first a news report Sep­tem­ber 10 2014 in the Ottawa Cit­i­zen by Blair Craw­ford and the sec­ond an opin­ion piece in the Globe and Mail writ­ten by Paul Mar­tin, Ed Broad­bent and Joe Clark—explore the clo­sure of the world-renowned Cana­dian devel­op­ment think-tank, the North-South Insti­tute after the fed­eral gov­ern­ment cut off fund­ing. The North-South Insti­tute is merely the lat­est in a long line of gov­ern­ment fund­ing cut­backs, fir­ings, and cen­sor­ship of civil-society orga­ni­za­tions, employ­ees, and scientists.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link
Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

CRA Audits: Due Process or Dan­ger To Democracy

Larry Brown, pres­i­dent of the Cana­dian Cen­tre for Pol­icy Alter­na­tives, was pub­lished Sep­tem­ber 22 on the web­site of the National Union of Gen­eral Employ­ees, of which he is national secretary-general. He accuses the fed­eral gov­ern­ment of under­min­ing democ­racy by under­min­ing the right of dis­sent, intim­i­dat­ing groups into silence over fear of being audited, and through a lack of trans­parency about who is being selected for audits and why and about def­i­n­i­tions and per­haps rede­f­i­n­i­tions of terms such as “polit­i­cal activ­ity.” These are essen­tially the find­ings of my thesis.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

CRA Tar­gets Local Nat­u­ral­ist Club

This Sep­tem­ber 20, 2014 Record opin­ion piece by Roger Suf­fling, an adjunct plan­ning pro­fes­sor, shares the expe­ri­ences of a local nat­u­ral­ist club with CRA, includ­ing receiv­ing a five-page post-audit “let­ter” (one of three such let­ters said to have been writ­ten in rela­tion to “polit­i­cal audits”) warn­ing them to avoid any par­ti­san activ­i­ties. Suf­fling makes an error of con­flat­ing polit­i­cal activ­i­ties and par­ti­san activ­i­ties in this piece, but makes a strong point about the club’s sub­se­quent choices to avoid pub­licly com­ment­ing on issues that fall under its mis­sion. And thus, he notes, the gov­ern­ment has, through the CRA, “silenced” a small local group for voic­ing pub­lic concern.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

CRA To Cut Staff

Bill Curry of the Globe and Mail reports Sep­tem­ber 19, 2014 that even as it increases focus on audit­ing char­i­ties for ‘polit­i­cal activ­i­ties,’ CRA is reduc­ing staff and atten­tion to catch­ing tax evaders and off­shore tax cheats. At par­tic­u­lar risk are vet­eran staff who know the ins and outs of off­shore tax schemes used by wealthy Cana­di­ans to dodge pay­ing their proper share of fed­eral taxes—at the very time that over­seas tax eva­sion is grow­ing as a prob­lem. Some 360 staff are at risk from a spend­ing freeze in the 2014 budget.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

Over 400 Aca­d­e­mics Tell CRA to Leave CCPA Alone

There are two reports here. The first, by Dean Beeby at Cana­dian Press, explores the let­ter by more than 400 aca­d­e­mics demand­ing that the CRA stop inves­ti­gat­ing the polit­i­cal activ­i­ties of the Cana­dian Cen­tre for Pol­icy alter­na­tives until it under­stands the basics of research and the role of think tanks in soci­ety. In the other, I’m inter­viewed by Carol Lin­nitt of Desmog Blog about my the­sis find­ing of CRA tar­get­ing of cer­tain char­i­ties that pub­licly dif­fer with the cur­rent gov­ern­ment about pub­lic pol­icy choices. I note that all think tanks have world views but that does not make their research par­ti­san or biased; only left­wing research insti­tutes, includ­ing the acclaimed CCPA, are being audited by CRA for polit­i­cal activities.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link | Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

Left-Leaning Think-Tank Expe­ri­ences Change in Definitions

This Labour Day (Sep­tem­ber 1, 2014) story by Dan Beeby of Cana­dian Press relates how left-leaning think-tank Cana­dian Cen­tre for Pol­icy Alter­na­tives obtained a CRA doc­u­ment under access to infor­ma­tion regs in which it appears that actions that had pre­vi­ously been approved in 1989–90 and 2002 audits are being ques­tioned in a cur­rent audit. The doc­u­ment, a ratio­nale for con­duct­ing the 2013 audit, sug­gests that web­site con­tent indi­cate the orga­ni­za­tion may be car­ry­ing out pro­hib­ited par­ti­san activ­i­ties and that research and edu­ca­tional mate­r­ial may be biased or one-sided. CCPA’s Bruce Camp­bell explains that all think tanks, whether left– or right-leaning, work from a spe­cific set of val­ues that guides their research and pol­icy analy­sis. But no right-wing think-tanks (e.g., CD Howe Insti­tute, Macdonald-Laurier Insti­tute, the Fraser Insti­tute and the Eco­nomic Insti­tute) appear to be under­go­ing sim­i­lar kinds of audits. Camp­bell says that the memo indi­cates a shift in def­i­n­i­tions being used by CRA in the cur­rent round of ‘polit­i­cal activ­i­ties’ audits.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

Prob­lem With Char­i­ties Is Their Gen­er­ous Tax Credit

In this August 27, 2014 col­umn for Post Media, Andrew Coyne argues that all char­i­ties ought lose their receipt­ing priv­i­leges for donors. Coyne argues that because they pub­licly advance their mis­sions, all char­ity com­mu­ni­ca­tions are inher­ently at least implic­itly “polit­i­cal activities.”—and hence the tax credit itself that cor­rupts orga­ni­za­tions, argues Coyne. Orga­ni­za­tions should be able to be polit­i­cal in the way that non-profits are because they all have world views. But char­i­ta­ble tax cred­its should be abol­ished instead of the CRA’s audit­ing activ­i­ties put under the micro­scope. He does not address how impor­tant ser­vice, edu­ca­tion, research, and other activ­i­ties would be accom­plished despite the large loss of rev­enues that char­i­ties would experience—or the larger sub­si­dies that tax­pay­ers gen­er­ally give busi­nesses through much larger tax deduc­tions they enjoy for their activ­i­ties aimed at per­suad­ing the pub­lic around issues.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

Char­ity Won­ders About Sud­den Inter­est from Ottawa

The Toronto Star con­tin­ues its ongo­ing inde­pen­dent cov­er­age of the char­ity chill with a news report by Dono­van Vin­cent. Few char­i­ties yet feel secure speak­ing pub­licly about their expe­ri­ences and Vin­cent revis­its in-depth CoDe­vel­op­ment Canada, a small (four staff, two of whom are part-time) Vancouver-based inter­na­tional devel­op­ment and human rights char­ity that works with Latin Amer­i­can part­ners. It is hav­ing dif­fi­culty fol­low­ing a recent CRA direc­tive to trans­late all paper­work from their part­ners, who oper­ate in Span­ish. The charity’s for­mer leader won­ders whether pre­vi­ous crit­i­cism of the government’s trade deal with Colom­bia has opened it up to repeat audits in the past three years.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

Rankin: Tory Audit Tac­tics Worrisome

The Vic­to­ria Times Colonist news­pa­per pub­lishes an August 21 opin­ion col­umn by local NDP MP Mur­ray Rankin, who is also the Oppo­si­tion critic for Finance, in which he refers indi­rectly to my the­sis. Rankin lists sev­eral ways in which the cur­rent gov­ern­ment has tried “to silence those who dis­agree with them,” includ­ing send­ing a chill through the char­i­ta­ble sector.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

An Unchar­i­ta­ble Chill The­sis Pro­filed by Royal Roads

Royal Roads Uni­ver­sity pro­files my the­sis, writ­ten as a stu­dent in their MA in Pro­fes­sional Com­mu­ni­ca­tion pro­gram. Staff writer Stephanie Har­ring­ton quotes my the­sis advi­sor, Dr David Black, who was very kind in his com­ments about my work. The respect is mutual: Dr Black is much her­alded by stu­dents, most of whom are mid-career pro­fes­sion­als like myself, for his teach­ing skills and for trig­ger­ing strong pas­sions for com­mu­ni­ca­tion the­ory. This respect­ful inter­change between adult pro­fes­sion­als is the Royal Roads advantage.

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Con­ser­v­a­tives Block Review of Audit Process

The fed­eral Lib­eral Party, quiet until now, appears to have joined the NDP in call­ing August 18 for the Finance com­mit­tee to inves­ti­gate the audit­ing process of the polit­i­cal activ­i­ties of some char­i­ties. Lib­eral MP Emmanuel Dubourg, a pro­fes­sional accoun­tant and for­mer long­time employee of Rev­enue Que­bec, called for set­ting the record straight through hearings.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

Com­mit­tee Has No Plans to Look Into Char­ity Interference

A motion by the NDP finance critic Mur­ray Rankin, partly based on my research find­ings, was rejected August 18 by a major­ity of the House of Com­mons finance com­mit­tee in a short, 45-minute, meet­ing closed to media and pub­lic by a major­ity vote of the Con­ser­v­a­tive mem­bers. The motion would have seen the com­mit­tee probe the CRA’s audits into polit­i­cal activ­i­ties of cer­tain Cana­dian char­i­ties. Rankin later repeated his ear­lier call for an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion into the audits. The gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to speak of the pro­fes­sion­al­ism of the CRA staff and not of the fun­nel the gov­ern­ment cre­ated that moves the CRA to audit­ing char­i­ties more likely to be crit­i­cal of gov­ern­ment pub­lic policies.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

Adam Daifal­lah: Unmuz­zle the Charities

For­mer National Post edi­to­r­ial board mem­ber Adam Daifal­lah called August 13 for the gov­ern­ment to free up char­i­ties to com­ment as they wish by dump­ing the restric­tion lim­it­ing char­i­ties to using no more than 10% of their resources for polit­i­cal activ­i­ties. He also asks why more polit­i­cal non-profit orga­ni­za­tions should be deprived of hav­ing char­i­ta­ble sta­tus, and hence able to write tax receipts. Inter­est­ingly, he notes that polit­i­cal par­ties are allowed a more gen­er­ous tax credit than char­i­ties. I would fur­ther posit that in the inter­est of fair play, char­i­ties should have the same free­dom for polit­i­cal activ­i­ties and tax write-offs as are enjoyed by businesses.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

Char­i­ties Push Back Against Harper

I wrote this report about my the­sis find­ings for Rabble.ca, pub­lished online on August 12. My the­sis found that char­i­ties were being muf­fled and dis­tracted by the fed­eral government’s actions, but many under­stood their own power and spoke of not accept­ing a “vic­tim” label. I write about some of the var­i­ous ways that char­i­ties are push­ing back that I am able to share under the terms of my con­sent agree­ment with participants.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

Char­i­ties Under Audit Fire Band Together for Answers from CRA: Editorial

The Toronto Star pub­lished an Edi­to­r­ial on August 11 in which they con­grat­u­lated the inter­na­tional aid char­i­ties that are join­ing forces to push back against audit­ing actions of CRA. And they called on the gov­ern­ment to accede to the two requests of the fed­eral NDP for an inde­pen­dent audit and a par­lia­men­tary probe of the audit­ing process.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

Foreign-Aid Char­i­ties Unite to Chal­lenge CRA Audits

Dean Beeby of Cana­dian Press wrote this August 10 news report that an umbrella orga­ni­za­tion for devel­op­ment char­i­ties, the Cana­dian Coun­cil for Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment, wants to meet with CRA to dis­cuss con­tentious audit and pol­icy issues and “rebuild a rela­tion­ship.” It refers indi­rectly to my the­sis. My study found that devel­op­ment char­i­ties are one of three sec­tors being tar­geted by the fed­eral gov­ern­ment through CRA, and that the sec­tor suf­fers from CRA reg­u­la­tions that are oner­ous and dif­fi­cult to work with given their unique inter­na­tional conditions.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

Edi­to­ri­als in Smaller-Market Papers Telling Gov­ern­ment to Call off Harassment

Here’s an Aug 8 edi­to­r­ial, directly ref­er­enc­ing my the­sis find­ings, that ran in the Allis­ton Her­ald and on Simcoe.com. There was a strong con­ver­sa­tion regard­ing my the­sis find­ings and related issues in small and medium news­pa­per mar­kets, includ­ing sub­ur­ban papers, small city, and resource communities.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link | JPG link

Trend­ing on Twitter

The char­ity chill sto­ries have repeat­edly trended on Twit­ter dur­ing the first three weeks of the national con­ver­sa­tion. The attached is a notice from Twit­ter of trend­ing on August 4.

PDF link

NDP Wants MPs to Probe Char­ity Audit Crackdown

Aug 5 news reports by Dean Beeby of Cana­dian Press and Mike De Souza of The Toronto Star cover a request to the fed­eral parliament’s finance com­mit­tee for an emer­gency recon­ven­ing to dis­cuss the politi­ciza­tion of the CRA political-audit process.

Link to online arti­cle| PDF link

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

Aussie Advo­cacy Crack­down Echoes Cana­dian Char­ity Fears

I was inter­viewed by David P Ball of The Tyee for this August 4 report com­par­ing Canada’s reg­u­la­tions of char­i­ties with that of Aus­tralia. The gov­ern­ments of both nations appear to be tak­ing actions to muz­zle and dis­tract their char­i­ties from polit­i­cal activ­i­ties, par­tic­u­larly envi­ron­men­tal organizations.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

Time­line of Polit­i­cal Activ­ity Audits

Cana­dian Press’s Dean Beeby cre­ated a time­line of the polit­i­cal activ­ity audits that includes my the­sis as a con­tri­bu­tion to the knowl­edge. The time­line, like my the­sis, kicks off with the stri­dent rhetoric of for­mer Nat­ural Resources (now Finance) Min­is­ter Joe Oliver’s open let­ter treat­ing envi­ron­men­tal­ists as ene­mies of the country.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

CRA’s Polit­i­cal Tar­get­ing of Char­i­ties Under Scrutiny

This Aug 3 report by Cana­dian Press’s Dean Beeby quotes directly from a recent entry on my blog. The report ran widely, includ­ing the National Post and The Globe and Mail. In it, the CRA reverses its pre­vi­ous asser­tion that it tries to polit­i­cally bal­ance the polit­i­cal activ­i­ties audits by ensur­ing groups with var­i­ous (pre­sumed) ide­olo­gies are audited. It now sug­gests the agency bal­ances through the four legit­i­mate cat­e­gories of ‘pur­pose.’ But Beeby demon­strates that evi­dence sug­gests otherwise.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

CRA Refuses to Divulge Audit Tac­tics Tar­get­ing Charities

Kathryn Blaze Carlson’s excel­lent report in the July 31 Globe and Mail high­lights a com­mu­ni­ca­tion prob­lem within CRA: the agency refused to release details of its inter­nal audit­ing guide­lines for inter­pret­ing whether a charity’s “polit­i­cal activ­i­ties” are accept­able. My the­sis found that char­i­ties are frus­trated and con­fused by the grey areas and pos­si­ble shifts in inter­pre­ta­tions of reg­u­la­tions gov­ern­ing accept­able “char­i­ta­ble” and “polit­i­cal” activ­i­ties and other reg­u­la­tions.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

I am inter­viewed by Coop Radio, Vancouver

I am inter­viewed early morn­ing July 31 by Media Morn­ings host David P. Ball at Coop Radio, Van­cou­ver. We dis­cussed the fun­nel that politi­cized CRA’s audit­ing and the impli­ca­tions for soci­ety of nar­row­ing pub­lic con­ver­sa­tions and gov­ern­ment mis­us­ing its power.

Link to online arti­cle | MP3 Sound File

I am inter­viewed by the Pamela McCall show on CFAX1070

I was inter­viewed by Pamela McCall’s mid-morning show on CFAX 1070 in Vic­to­ria, BC. We dis­cussed the fun­nel that politi­cized CRA’s audit­ing process and the impli­ca­tion of char­i­ties’ muf­fling and dis­trac­tion for soci­ety get­ting needed expert input on pub­lic pol­icy issues.

MP3 Sound File

CRA Audit Sets Tough Con­di­tions for Small Charity

Dean Beeby of Cana­dian Press on July 30 uncov­ers a small Van­cou­ver devel­op­ment charity—CoDevelopment Canada Association—funded by labour unions that has passed a recent CRA audit, includ­ing polit­i­cal activ­i­ties, but has new oner­ous require­ments that will be dif­fi­cult to meet given their small size.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

My Tyee Guest Blog: BC Hit Hard by Char­ity Chill

I wrote this guest blog pub­lished July 29 on The Tyee. I argue that BC is par­tic­u­larly hard-hit by the muf­fling and dis­trac­tion of char­i­ties that advo­cate on pub­lic pol­icy issues, given the con­tentious issues now under dis­cus­sion, includ­ing pipeline and other energy issues, First Nations claims, and high unemployment.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

Radio Canada Inter­na­tional Inter­views Me (With Sound Clip)

Terry Haig, an excel­lent inter­viewer for Radio Canada Inter­na­tional, ran a story includ­ing a sound-clip of our inter­view on July 29. I address the issue of CRA being used by the gov­ern­ment by use of a deci­sion fun­nel to fight the government’s bat­tles against cit­i­zen groups that have dif­fer­ent pol­icy pref­er­ences to those of the government.

Link to online arti­cle | MP3 Sound File

Harper Gov­ern­ment Sys­tem­at­i­cally Silenc­ing Dis­sent: Payne

Lisa Payne argues in a July 28 col­umn in the St. John’s, NL, Telegram that the cur­rent Harper gov­ern­ment uses “aggres­sive attack(s) on any­one and every­one who dis­agrees with their ide­ol­ogy or pol­icy.” She draws directly on the find­ings of my thesis.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

Inno­cent Char­i­ties Have Noth­ing to Fear: Corcoran

The national con­ver­sa­tion broad­ens. Unlike other right-leaning colum­nists Mar­garet Wente and Don Cayo, Ter­ence Cor­co­ran of the Finan­cial Post sees char­i­ties that com­plain of the polit­i­cal audits as left­ist whin­ers and argues July 28 that they have noth­ing to fear if they have done noth­ing wrong. He does not dis­cuss the dis­trac­tion and muf­fling that goes along with the tar­get­ing of pro­gres­sive char­i­ties and sug­gests that all char­i­ties are being treated fairly.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

Toronto Star Says Feds Going Too Far in Char­ity Targeting

Fol­low­ing on the series of reports by Dean Beeby on my the­sis find­ings, and the expe­ri­ences with CRA of Oxfam Canada and Pen Canada, the July 27 Toronto Star sounds the alarm that the fed­eral gov­ern­ment is going too far in tar­get­ing char­i­ties with pol­icy ideas that dif­fer from their own.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

CRA Says They Select to Bal­ance Char­ity Politics

Steven Chase and Bill Curry report in the July 25 Globe and Mail that CRA con­sciously selects char­i­ties from across the polit­i­cal spec­trum for the spe­cial political-activity audits ordered by the fed­eral gov­ern­ment. They quote from my the­sis find­ings and inter­view me for the report. I see no evi­dence of right-leaning char­i­ties being audited for polit­i­cal activities.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

Char­ity Umbrel­las Not Look­ing for Fight With CRA

Kady O’Malley at CBC Par­lia­men­tary Bureau posted this report to the web­site July 25. It’s an inter­est­ing mix: char­ity umbrella group Imag­ine Canada say­ing it has no inten­tion of tak­ing on CRA, a Chris­t­ian char­ity umbrella group accus­ing other char­i­ties of break­ing reg­u­la­tions, and a review of the Oxfam run-in with CRA, which insisted the highly regarded devel­op­ment group remove a ref­er­ence to “pre­vent­ing poverty: from its char­i­ta­ble pur­pose. Intrigu­ing all around.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

CRA Audit­ing Church-Based Char­ity Group Kairos

Bill Curry of the Globe and Mail explores on July 24 the audit of the United Church of Canada, focus­ing on polit­i­cal activ­i­ties of Kairos, an inter­na­tional aid orga­ni­za­tion funded by 11 churches and admin­is­tered by the UCC. The United Church’s CFO says he is not yet con­vinced that the church was tar­geted for polit­i­cal rea­sons. Writes Curry: “The Harper gov­ern­ment can­celled fed­eral fund­ing for Kairos in 2009 over its posi­tion on the Israeli-Palestinian con­flict, end­ing 35 straight years of gov­ern­ment trans­fers to the orga­ni­za­tion for for­eign aid-related work.”

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

Unhappy Char­ity Expe­ri­ences with CRA: CP

Dean Beeby of Cana­dian Press shares the expe­ri­ences of Oxfam Canada (July 24) and Pen Canada (July 21) with Canada Rev­enue Agency regard­ing accept­able “pur­poses” and “polit­i­cal activ­i­ties” respec­tively. Beeby is now drilling down, bring­ing to light the sto­ries of indi­vid­ual char­i­ties, mov­ing beyond gen­er­al­iza­tions in the national con­ver­sa­tion about char­ity reg­u­la­tions and audits.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

Tax Audits Tar­get­ing Crit­ics Should Worry All Cana­di­ans: Cayo

Draw­ing indi­rectly from my the­sis find­ings, Right-wing lib­er­tar­ian colum­nist Don Cayo writes July 24 argues in the Van­cou­ver Sun that by politi­ciz­ing CRA’s audit­ing process to tar­get char­i­ties with a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive than the gov­ern­ment, it sets a prece­dent for future gov­ern­ments with dif­fer­ent ide­olo­gies. Cayo sug­gests let­ting donors decide if a char­ity is too political.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

Is PEN the Lat­est Tar­get of Harper’s Selec­tive Tax Audits?: Tyee

Quot­ing from my research find­ings, a July 24 opin­ion piece by the National Union of Pub­lic and Gen­eral Employ­ees quotes their pres­i­dent, James Clancy’s argu­ment that the cur­rent fed­eral gov­ern­ment has taken a series of actions against civil-society orga­ni­za­tions that together send the mes­sage: “Speak out against the Harper gov­ern­ment and we will tar­get you with an audit.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

Pen and the Pol­i­tics of Char­ity: Wente

Draw­ing indi­rectly on my the­sis find­ings, Globe and Mail right-leaning colum­nist Mar­garet Wente July 24 ques­tions the government’s pri­or­i­ties in audit­ing left-wing char­i­ties for ‘polit­i­cal activities.’

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

Char­i­ties Might be Asked for Donor Lists

Dean Beeby of Cana­dian Press reports July 23 of a meet­ing between char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tions and rev­enue min­is­ter Kerry-Lynne Find­lay in which the min­is­ter raised the idea of all char­i­ties hav­ing to for­ward a list of donor names to the gov­ern­ment. The idea was raised in con­nec­tion with tack­ling the ongo­ing prob­lem of donor-receipt fraud, but there are con­cerns about the gov­ern­ment know­ing that level of infor­ma­tion about people’s char­ity choices, par­tic­u­larly in the cur­rent fed­eral polit­i­cal climate.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

CRA Becomes an Arm of the PMO: Baglow

John Baglow’s spicy opin­ion piece on Rabble.ca on July 22 reviews mul­ti­ple actions of the cur­rent fed­eral gov­ern­ment on sci­en­tists, artists, First Nations and now char­i­ties as it nar­rows society’s pub­lic con­ver­sa­tions. He draws sub­stan­tially from my the­sis findings.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

Char­i­ties Bul­lied into Mut­ing their Mes­sages: Researcher

DeSmog Blog Canada’s Carol Lin­nit ran an in-depth inter­view July 21 with me regard­ing my the­sis find­ings.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

Char­ity Chill Raises Alarm: Star editorial

This July 21 Toronto Star edi­to­r­ial reviews the issue, includ­ing my find­ings, and goads all polit­i­cal par­ties and politi­cians at the fed­eral and provin­cial level, as well as wealthy phil­an­thropists, to pres­sure the gov­ern­ment to back off harass­ment of charities.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

NDP Call for Inde­pen­dent Probe into CRA’s Tar­get­ing of Charities

Based partly on the find­ings of my the­sis, two fed­eral NDP shadow crit­ics, called July 16 on the fed­eral gov­ern­ment to set up an inde­pen­dent probe of the CRA’s tar­get­ing of some char­i­ties for polit­i­cal activities.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

Stephen Harper Intim­i­dates Char­i­ties Into Silence: Goar

Toronto Star colum­nist Carol Goar takes the fed­eral gov­ern­ment to task July 15 for using tax audits as a tool to intim­i­date or pun­ish groups crit­i­cal of the government’s agenda. Goar draws on my the­sis find­ings, though seem­ingly miss­ing some of my find­ings con­cern­ing Eth­i­cal Oil’s involvement.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

How Tories Bully Char­i­ties and Abuse Power

I wrote this guest blog pub­lished July 16 in the “Pol­i­tics” sec­tion of Huff­in­g­ton Post Canada: How Tories Bully Char­i­ties. It had strong vis­its, tweets, and retweets.

Link to online arti­cle | PDF link

Live Inter­view on CBC Vic­to­ria Radio

I was inter­viewed July 14, 2014 on CBC Victoria’s morn­ing drive-in radio show, On the Island.

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Cana­dian Press: Con­ser­v­a­tive Gov­ern­ment Steps Up Scrutiny of Char­i­ties’ Polit­i­cal Activities

Dean Beeby, deputy bureau chief for Cana­dian Press in Ottawa, includes my the­sis find­ings in his July 10 report on the expan­sion of Canada Rev­enue Agency audits for “polit­i­cal activ­i­ties” of char­i­ties, to orga­ni­za­tions other than envi­ron­men­tal char­i­ties. It was widely pub­lished in full or in part online and in print in larger daily news­pa­pers, includ­ing the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star and Post Media chain. Jonathan Hay­ward pho­tog­ra­phy.

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Gareth Kirkby Poses in Van­cou­ver, BC.

Some daily pub­li­ca­tions, includ­ing the Cal­gary Her­ald and the Mon­treal Gazette ran a July 10 photo and cap­tion rather than the entire report by Dean Beeby. Jonathan Hay­ward photography

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Study Cites Chill from Tax Agency Audits of Char­i­ties’ Polit­i­cal Activities

My the­sis results are fea­tured in this July 10, 2014 report by Dean Beeby, deputy bureau chief for Cana­dian Press. It was widely pub­lished online and in print and radio, pri­mar­ily in smaller cities, sub­urbs, and resource com­mu­ni­ties. It also ran online and in print with some larger out­lets, includ­ing CBC, Ottawa Cit­i­zen, and Canada.com’s large chain of papers. Jonathan Hay­ward pho­tog­ra­phy.

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