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   "Alan Baggett"  wrote in message   
   news:c6579d24-2076-4343-a050-4dab3ff9daf2@googlegroups.com...   
      
   Time to clean house at the Canada Revenue Agency: CRA SOTW   
      
   By Mitchell Anderson | Nov 30, 2015 8:58 pm |   
      
   It already seems so long since Stephen Harper lorded over our nation. But   
   before memories fade of this awful ordeal, there are some critical   
   house-cleaning items to take care of. Perhaps the most pressing is the need   
   to uncover whether the Canada Revenue Agency was improperly taking political   
   direction from the Prime Minister's Office.   
      
   It's true that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has now directed the new   
   minister of national revenue, Diane Lebouthillier, to cease hounding   
   environmental charities. Specifically, her mandate letter states the CRA   
   should "allow charities to do their work on behalf of Canadians free from   
   political harassment ..."   
      
   That's all well and good, but there's a far larger principle at play. It's   
   not enough that charitable non-profits can expect the executive branch will   
   no longer use the public service as a tool of political intimidation. This   
   must never happen again.   
      
   The only way to fully clean this wound is through a Commission of Inquiry   
   empowered to compel testimony under oath and order the production of   
   documents. Senior CRA bureaucrats must be called to answer for themselves.   
   Former PMO staffers should be ordered to appear -- perhaps before they   
   disappear to Kuwait.   
      
   To understand how egregious this potential abuse of process is (and how meek   
   our response has been) we need to look south of the border. When the Obama   
   administration was accused in 2011 of directing the Internal Revenue Service   
   (IRS) to target charities associated with the Tea Party, the attorney   
   general directed the FBI to conduct a special criminal investigation.   
      
   There also were two congressional committees looking into the allegations,   
   an audit by the treasury inspector general and a public statement of outrage   
   from the president himself. Three senior IRS officials were forced to   
   resign.   
      
   While the FBI found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing, the American public   
   remained outraged. Opinion polls showed that three-quarters of American   
   voters and almost two-thirds of Democrats wanted a special prosecutor   
   appointed to further dig into the possibility that the IRS was being used   
   for political purposes.   
      
   Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill summed up the wrath of her colleagues:   
   "We should not only fire the head of the IRS, which has occurred, but we've   
   got to go down the line and find every single person who had anything to do   
   with this and make sure that they are removed from the IRS and the word goes   
   out that this is unacceptable."   
      
   The other side of the aisle was understandably apoplectic. Then Speaker of   
   the House John Boehner demanded penal retribution. "My question isn't about   
   who's going to resign. My question is, who's going to jail over this   
   scandal?"   
   Political staffers (or ministers, for that matter) have no business telling   
   the tax collection arm of government which side of the political spectrum   
   requires special attention.   
      
   So where is our outrage? Arguably the evidence of executive branch   
   interference in our revenue agency is much clearer on this side of the   
   border. The Conservative government somehow found an extra $8 million in   
   their 2012 belt-tightening budget specifically earmarked for CRA to   
   investigate "concerns ... raised that some charities may not be respecting   
   the rules regarding political activities" and "the extent to which they may   
   be funded by foreign sources."   
      
   Prime Minister Harper himself alleged that U.S. interests were funding   
   Canadian environmental groups to block the Enbridge Northern Gateway   
   pipeline. Former environment minister Peter Kent claimed that American   
   foundations were engaged in "money laundering" to fund Canadian   
   environmental groups.   
      
   The CRA has conducted extraordinary audits on scores of progressive   
   charities since 2012, many dragging on for years. David Suzuki resigned from   
   his own foundation to help insulate it from this apparent witch hunt.   
      
   CRA spokespeople would occasionally maintain with a straight face that there   
   was no direction from the PMO -- but did anyone believe them? Of course not,   
   and that's the whole point. The unspoken message to civil society was   
   chillingly clear: Do not rely on due process -- self-censor your troublesome   
   messaging, or else.   
      
   Other optics around this are even more outrageous. Apparently many of the   
   complaints filed to CRA about specific groups were from Ethical Oil, a group   
   founded by Alykhan Velshi -- coincidentally, a longtime Conservative staffer   
   who later landed the position of issues management in the PMO. Small world.   
      
   The number of public complaints to the CRA on charities also ballooned   
   sixfold between 2011 and 2013. This was strangely coincident with the   
   government gifting the CRA $13.1 million in additional funding dedicated   
   specifically to charitable audits -- up from the original $8 million in   
   2012.   
      
   The list of targeted groups reads like a who's-who of prominent left-leaning   
   organizations, including Environmental Defence, the Canadian Centre for   
   Policy Alternatives, Tides Canada and the David Suzuki Foundation.   
      
   Still, CRA spokeswoman Jennifer McCabe blandly assured the nation that "the   
   process for identifying which charities will be audited for any reason is   
   handled by the Charities Directorate of the CRA alone in a fair and   
   consistent way."   
      
   The official in charge of said charities directorate, Cathy Hawara, further   
   intoned that their work is "not subject to political direction." One would   
   hope not. But to suggest the agency has a credibility problem on this file   
   is something of a subterranean understatement.   
      
   Only a fully public and legally mandated inquiry can help clear the air. If   
   warranted, individuals inside or outside the public service must be held   
   accountable to the fullest extent of the law. The CRA, like all government   
   departments, has an obvious obligation to act impartially. Political   
   staffers (or ministers, for that matter) have no business telling the tax   
   collection arm of government which side of the political spectrum requires   
   special attention.   
      
   Incidentally, 10 right-leaning charities -- including the Fraser   
   Institute -- seem completely unaffected by the CRA's recent enthusiasm for   
   enforcement and oversight, even though all remarkably report zero per cent   
      
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