Charitable foundation in charge of promoting Canada in Britain in uproar and accusing High Commission of meddling
2015/02/14 1 Comment
Another short-sighted decision and one that reduces discussion and debate (disclosure I once gave a presentation at one of their annual meetings and it was an interesting mix of topics).
And the link between activities and charitable status echoes the choice of Canadian charities being audited by CRA:
The charitable foundation given the job of promoting Canada in Britain is in an uproar after several board members quit this week, accusing the Canadian High Commission of meddling.
Historian Margaret MacMillan and think-tank advisor Diana Carney, the wife of the Bank of England chief, are among the four people who handed in their resignations.
In her resignation letter, Ms. MacMillan said it’s clear the high commission plans to take over the Foundation for Canadian Studies in the United Kingdom with the aim of promoting Canada’s interests as it sees fit.
The foundation’s website says it co-operates with — but operates separately from — the diplomatic mission, which has made financial contributions over the years.
The organization, a British charity with an endowment of about $2.3-million, was set up in 1975 to support teaching, research and publishing about Canada in Britain, as well as foster academic ties and student exchanges between Canadian and British universities.
….It was once among a handful of foreign charities allowed to issue tax receipts in Canada.
But in Mr. Campbell’s December letter, obtained by The Canadian Press, he advised board members that this status had ended.
He went on to add that the federal government’s decision might change if the foundation also changed.
“I understand from my colleagues in Ottawa that our renewal request would be entertained if the foundation were to expand its mission,” he wrote.
About Andrew
Multicultural Meanderings 
It looks like the Harper government is continuing its policy of subverting government and non-government organizations to transform them into instruments of purely partisan Harper politics, not realizing that – in this case certainly – this policy will destroy the credibility and therefore the usefulness of the organization itself. This is short-sighted, destructive, and self-destructive. Canada’s reputation, already suffering on many fronts, will be in tatters precisely among those sectors which are of interest to our long-term presence in the world. And of course it will boomerang on the policies Harper wishes to promote and the image he, apparently, wishes to create. This policy is not only unprincipled; it is, visibly, stupid.