By Canadian Press

Muslim charity alleges systemic bias in bid to halt revenue agency’s ‘tainted’ audit

Apr 3, 2023 | 10:46 AM

OTTAWA — A grassroots Muslim charity is pointing to internal Canada Revenue Agency documents in a bid to persuade an Ontario court that a long-running federal audit is fundamentally tainted by systemic bias and Islamophobia.

The Muslim Association of Canada wants the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to halt the revenue agency’s audit of the association on the grounds it violates Charter of Rights guarantees of equality and freedom of religion, expression and association.

Lawyers for the registered charity plan to argue at a hearing Tuesday that the audit, which began in 2015, discriminates against Muslims.

The federal government is asking that the case be dismissed, saying the revenue agency’s selection of the association for an audit and the subsequent examination do not infringe Charter rights.

The association, which promotes community service, education and youth empowerment, says over 150,000 Canadians use its mosques, schools and community centres each year. 

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The court hearing comes amid public scrutiny of the Review and Analysis Division of the revenue agency’s charities directorate, which is conducting the audit.

A 2021 report by the Ottawa-based International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group said the division works with national security agencies to carry out such audits, with little accountability or independent review.

Following her participation in a national summit in 2021 on Islamophobia, Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier asked taxpayers’ ombudsperson François Boileau to conduct a systemic review of the concerns from Muslim-led charities about their treatment by the revenue agency.

However, Boileau recently said that due to obstacles in accessing relevant information, he could not examine the issues “deeply enough” to assess the existence of bias in how the revenue agency applies its processes. 

The Ontario court case is expected to shed fresh — and possibly unprecedented — light on the division’s practices.

In a written submission to the court, the federal attorney general says the revenue agency’s preliminary audit findings identified “several serious issues” concerning the Muslim Association of Canada’s non-compliance with its charitable registration obligations.

These included involvement in political activities of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, buying considerable real estate, providing support to an organization listed as a terrorist entity and issuing improper donation receipts, federal lawyers say in the filing.

The association, known as MAC, “has not raised credible evidence that it was unfairly targeted by the CRA, nor that in conducting the audit the CRA treated MAC any differently than it would another charity,” the submission says.

In its filing to the court, the association says it has provided “a detailed response” to the revenue agency, which has yet to issue a final decision on the audit. But “realizing that the die is already cast by a severely flawed audit process,” the association has also initiated the Charter challenge.

The charity says the government takes a wrong-headed approach from the outset by identifying the risk of terrorist financing with minority groups it labels as foreign, in particular Muslim organizations.

“With such a starting point it is hardly surprising, although deeply disappointing, that Muslim Canadians are all painted with the same brush and an organization like MAC that runs mosques and schools is regarded as inherently suspect because its membership belongs to the same religious group as organizations like al-Qaida,” the submission says.

It also takes exception to revenue agency documents that have surfaced in the case — an Audit Referral Analysis created in preparation for the examination and a “desk review” for the audit team to guide the process.

The association considers both documents highly problematic, saying they rely heavily on biased and Islamophobic sources.

The charity cites expert evidence from University of Toronto law professor Anver Emon, a scholar of Islamic legal history, who says the revenue agency characterizes the Muslim Brotherhood by relying on information “that is either selective, alarmist, or even Islamophobic in nature.”

The association objects to the revenue agency expressing concern it might have an ideological affiliation with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood without making any distinction between political connections to the group in Egypt and the religious ideology upon which the Muslim Brotherhood is founded.

The problem with this approach is that while the association follows the religious ideology of Imam Hassan al-Banna that led to the establishment of the Muslim Brotherhood, “adopting the religious ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood is not the same thing as supporting the political ideology of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood,” the association says. As a result, the revenue agency’s Review and Analysis Division “conflated two entirely separate concepts.”

As a registered charity, MAC understands that it is subject to audit by the revenue agency, but it is “not subject to an audit that holds it to a different standard than audits of other religious charities,” the submission adds.

“Put bluntly, the current (revenue agency) audit is so tainted by Charter infringements that it is unsalvageable.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 3, 2023.

Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press