I wrote this a while back regarding the Canadian Finance department: ATIP reveals no records to support revoking charitable status of CPCs.
I subsequently submitted another ATIP to CRA to see what they had on the same subject. What I received back from CRA revealed a couple of things.
First of all, it told me that CRA would not be doing anything about revoking the charitable status on pro-life organizations (good news). It isn't their job to. It is Finance's job. But CRA did receive numerous inquiries from the media regarding Justin Trudeau's hateful, discriminatory, mean-spirited, devoid of merit, desire to remove their charitable status. For example:
Question: In the Liberal Forward for Everyone platform the party committed to no longer providing charitable status to anti-abortion organizations. Can you please tell me what is the status of this commitment? Has your department been given any sort of timeline to implement this commitment? Do you have a list of charities that would potentially be impacted by this change and could you share it?
Proposed response: The confidentiality provisions of the Income Tax Act prevent the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) from commenting on specific cases. However, we can provide you with the following information. The CRA can only determine whether an activity of a charity is acceptable after it has fully considered the facts of a particular case based on common law. According to the common law, the promotion of health can be charitable. To be charitable, a purpose that promotes health must, as a general rule, directly prevent or relieve a physical or mental health condition by providing effective health care services or products to the public in a manner that meets applicable quality and safety requirements. For more information, see Guidance CG-021, Promotion of health and charitable registration.
If the CRA identifies that a charity is not complying with the requirements of the Act, the charity could be subject to a number of compliance actions, up to and including revocation. We encourage the public to report suspected non-compliance by registered charities to the National Leads Centre.
Note that the CRA cannot provide any feedback and/or update on leads received, or subsequent actions taken. CRA’s actions can only made public when they result in a charity being: •revoked, •annulled, •suspended
The CRA posts such cases in its List of charities. This provides transparency to Canadians regarding the decisions of the CRA with respect to charities.
Notice that these inquiries were referred back to Finance:
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) administers the legislative provisions under the Income Tax Act. However, any legislative changes to the Act are the responsibility of the Department of Finance Canada. As a result, the CRA cannot comment on any potential legislative changes. (emphasis added)
Okay. So clearly CRA will not do anything about Justin Trudeau's hateful, discriminatory, mean-spirited, devoid of merit, election promise.
Similar responses to media are also made in the document.
Then this statement:
The IM Team is prepared to respond to further enquiries by referring to the Department of Finance. (emphasis added)
CRA is clearly referring these requests back to Finance. But as far as I know Finance had no records on this (as mentioned earlier).
Finally we see this statement:
The Department of Finance has asked for our views regarding the Liberal Platform commitment.
So Finance asked for CRA's views on Justin Trudeau's hateful, discriminatory, mean-spirited, devoid of merit desire, election promise. But my ATIP to Finance revealed no documents. How could there be no documents, when Finance is asking for input from CRA?
I have now asked the Department of Finance why my previous ATIP to them revealed nothing. I am still waiting for a response.
Something is definitely fishy in the State of Denmark.
