Re: Transperancy goes both ways (Our View, Aug. 8)
The criteria for auditing charities for their political activities is timely and troubling.
The Canada Review Agency has created a team of auditors to audit the political activities of selected charities. Some 52 audits are underway and or concluded, with eight more to be launched by 2016, drawing upon a special $13.4 million fund.
Ironically, this is the same CRA that has cut staff employed in chasing down wealthy individuals and corporations that hide from $5 billion to $8 billion annually in potential tax revenue through their secret foreign tax havens.
As your editorial pointed out, the initial wave of political audits in 2012-3 was aimed at environmental groups that opposed the Harper government’s energy and pipeline policies.
Now they have targeted voluntary associations that are fighting poverty, providing international aid, and promoting human rights.
Your editorial’s call for Harper government transparency is bang-on.
Government intrusion into the legitimate political activities of free, voluntary associations is yet another nail in the coffin of our dying democracy.
I hope Victoria MP Murray Rankin continues to shine the light of openness and transparency on the bizarre audit of Canada’s civil societies and their humane services, and also onto the
national scandal of billions of dollars of tax revenues lost annually because of a government that does not have the will to close tax shelter laws and loopholes of the elites!
Ron Faris, Victoria
