April 4, 2023

Lawyers for the Muslim Association of Canada argue that the Canada Revenue Agency’s audit of the charity is rooted in Islamophobia and ‘systemic bias,’ citing newly released internal CRA documents.

One year after launching its Charter challenge, one of Canada’s largest grassroots Muslim charities hopes to convince an Ontario court to end an audit by the country’s revenue agency it says is rooted in Islamophobia and violates its freedom of religion. 

The Muslim Association of Canada (MAC) is attempting to have the Ontario Superior Court put a stop to an audit of its finances by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), which it says is rooted in “systemic bias” and Islamophobia, and is “fundamentally and fatally flawed” as a result.

Lawyers for MAC were at the Ontario Superior Court on April 4 to begin arguments in the charity’s challenge of the CRA’s audit, conducted by the Review and Analysis Division (RAD), a part of the agency’s charities directorate. RAD is responsible for delivering the Agency’s mandate under the Anti-Terrorism Act to prevent terrorist financing and money laundering in the charitable sector.

The challenge aims to demonstrate that the RAD audits, which began in 2015, discriminated against Muslims and violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms’ guarantees of equality and freedom of religion, expression, and association.

In response, government lawyers with the Attorney General’s office are asking the court to dismiss the case, arguing it does not have standing to make a section 15 charter claim, as the charity is not an “individual,” nor did the CRA’s selection for audit infringe its rights or interfere with its ability “to act in accordance with its religious beliefs in a manner that is more than trivial or insubstantial,” according to the government’s responding factum. 

“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,” reads the statement.

The government argues that the preliminary audit findings had identified several non-compliance issues with MAC’s obligations. Those issues include advancing non-charitable purposes “by [promoting] the Muslim Brotherhood organization… [accumulating] real property, [providing] support to an organization listed as a terrorist entity, and [issuing] improper donation receipts.” At the hearing, Geoff Hall, a lawyer with McCarthy Tétrault LLP representing MAC in the proceedings, began the charity’s arguments with what he said is a “deliberately absurd” rhetorical question to illustrate the reality of the audits targeting Muslim charities. 

Read the full article: Muslim charity asks court to halt ‘fundamentally and fatally flawed’ audit it says violates Charter freedoms – The Hill Times

By Stuart Benson, The Hill Times