The opposition Liberals in the Senate are going online to push what has thus far been a war of words on the Senate floor over foreign funding of Canadian charities, into a full-fledge investigation inside the confines of a Senate committee room.
If that were to happen, the Senate finance committee would have the power to call witnesses, get expert advice and make recommendations to the Senate and the government.
The Liberals first asked for the committee investigation on May 8, but without the support of the Conservatives, who have a majority in the Senate, the proposal has gone nowhere. On Thursday, the Liberal leader in the Senate, Sen. James Cowan, accused the Tories of “ragging the puck” by adjourning debate to avoid dealing with his proposal.
“It is wrong for Conservatives to use their position in the Senate or in cabinet to make serious accusations without providing an opportunity for those accused to present their side of the story. In our opinion, it is that kind of behaviour that is anti-Canadian,” Cowan said.
On Thursday, the Liberals launched an online petition that calls on senators to approve Cowan’s motion:
That the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance be authorized to examine and report on the tax consequences of various public and private advocacy activities undertaken by charitable and non-charitable entities in Canada and abroad;
That, in conducting such a study, the committee take particular note of:
(a) Charitable entities that receive funding from foreign sources;
(b) Corporate entities that claim business deductions against Canadian taxes owing for their advocacy activities, both in Canada and abroad; and
(c) Educational entities that utilize their charitable status to advocate on behalf of the interests of private entities; and
That the Committee submit its final report to the Senate no later than June 30, 2013, and retain all powers necessary to publicize its findings for 180 days after the tabling of the final report.
The online petition had just over 900 signatories at before 11 a.m. Thursday, and follows a similar attempt by the Suzuki Foundation to use the power of the web to influence the decisions of the Senate.
“We believe that if the government has a legitimate concern about lobbying and advocacy, whether on environmental or other public policy issues, we should look into it – but we have to do it seriously and fairly,” said Sen. Grant Mitchell, the Liberal’s environment critic in the Senate. “That means we should not only look at charities; we need to also look at the lobbying and advocacy work done by others, including corporations.”
The debate in the Senate about foreign funding to domestic charities has been going on since it was first raised in late February by Sen. Nicole Eaton. After weeks of speeches, Sen. Percy Mockler called out a number of the “bad, not to mention ugly, foundations,” and went on to list the David Suzuki Foundation, thePackard Foundation, the Mott Foundation, the Sierra Club Foundation, theHewlett Foundation, the Ecojustice Canada Bullitt Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and Tides Canada. Sen. Mike Duffy referred to the Suzuki Foundation and others as “anti-Canadian,” and Sen. Donald Neil Plett questioned what groups these foundations wouldn’t take money from: “If environmentalists are willing to accept money from Martians, where would they draw the line on where they receive money from? Would they take money from al Qaeda, the Hamas or the Taliban? Who is really making the decisions in Canada if we allow foreign money to lobby against what should be Canadian-made decisions?” Liberal Sen. Terry Mercer called Mockler the “spokesman for the flat earth society,” and hollers went back and forth during the debate.
Despite their protestations of innocence, we are learning more every day about how some of these groups are abusing the Canadian tax system. This is not only an abuse of the Canadian taxpayer, it unfairly casts a shadow over the vast majority of charities that do great work and that follow the rules. I salute Senator Segal for pointing that out; but these few who choose to flout the law are putting a cloud over the many who do important work every day. We must bring these foreign-funded abuses to an end before further damage is done to the honest, hard-working, good, Canadian charitable sector.
The debate has divided even the Tory benches. On May 10 — shortly before Duffy made his statement — Sen. Hugh Segal tempered discussion by saying that if it was transparency that senators were after, it should apply across the board, not just to those organizations that have ideological differences with the government.
We are an open society with the free movement of people, goods, services and capital. This has always been the goal of those of us who are free traders at heart. Limiting this freedom for charitable foundations would be a destructive and retrograde step. My sense of a free society, and a more open North American market also includes the free movement of ideas. Transparency should allow all to judge motivation and purpose of any intervener, or any participant in national debate or discussions. Restrictive tax audits, fuelled not by impartial application of the tax laws but by one set of views versus another, have no place in a free society. How far might this instrument go if it was abused? Threaten the United Church’s charitable status because of the views of some of its adherents on the Middle East? Threaten an evangelical church’s right to promote its views on abortion? Spare me. However one disagrees with the lawful opposing view, the right of the organization to espouse it should never be limited in a free society. That is not the Canadian way. It should not be limited by this chamber, by the other chamber, by any court or by any department of government.
The Senate inquiry started with Sen. Nicole Eaton, who has defended her position saying that the discussion isn’t about ideology, but about three things: transparency, disclosure and enforcement, according to her website. In a letter to the editor earlier this month, sent to the Globe and Mail and posted on her website, she argued that her inquiry into the foreign funding of Canadian charities has been taken out of context.
We expect complete transparency from our politicians; why not expect the same from our charities? And the vast majority of Canadians agree: in a recent Angus Reid poll, 80% support our position of greater transparency.
Let me put it as simply as I possibly can. There are millions of dollars crossing borders. We know of at least $300 million dollars that have come to Canadian charities from foreign foundations. Not a single entity has denied that. Some even brag about it.
There are charities that act as nothing more than fiscal clearinghouses by accepting donations and forwarding the money to organizations that do not qualify for charitable status and therefore cannot issue income tax receipts.
She argued that none of what has been said has been an exaggeration, but a series of “inconvenient truths.”
