Expert’s report criticizes CRA over audit of Muslim charity, calls for improvements

Reasonable recommendations for more education and awareness:

…MAC has long contended that an audit of its activities by the revenue agency’s Review and Analysis Division was fundamentally tainted by systemic bias and Islamophobia.

During court proceedings over the agency’s audit, federal lawyers said preliminary audit findings identified “several serious issues’’ concerning the association’s non-compliance with its charitable registration obligations.

These allegedly included involvement in foreign political activities, buying considerable real estate, providing support to an organization listed as a terrorist entity and issuing improper donation receipts.

Gallant’s report says scrutiny for support of extremism places charities “in the unenviable position of making decisions about what actors, or actions, the administrator of charities law might think are linked to terrorism.”

“Despite the distinctive ambitions of the administrative agency — the effort to police terrorist abuse — in the case of the MAC audit that effort proved seriously deficient.”

Gallant said the agency drew heavily on MAC’s links and ties with others in its analysis.

“Considerable dispute exists over the implications and effectiveness of such ‘links,’ or associational, methods,” she wrote. “It risks capturing innocent activity through associational connections, risks ‘over-inclusion’ and can fail to accurately discern between suspicious activity and authentic legitimate activity.”

Leaders of Muslim charities, volunteers and employees exist within their religious communities, the report adds. “Any anointing of the notion that associations — connections — indicates terrorist abuse risks overidentification and the attraction of ‘guilt’ by association,” it says.

The revenue agency could play a bigger role in educating charities about the possible risks of involvement with certain groups or people, Gallant said in an interview.

“I think that if the charities directorate was a little more forthcoming in educating, specifically — don’t interact, don’t be doing things here, we’re suspicious about these things — then charities can make a choice, right?” she said….

Source: Expert’s report criticizes CRA over audit of Muslim charity, calls for improvements