Executive Director of Canadian Council of Imams, Imam Sikander Hashmi, at Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Thursday.Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press
The National Council of Canadian Muslims is pressing the federal government to respond to a national-security watchdog report this month that raised questions about which charities the Canada Revenue Agency was selecting for audits over terrorism concerns.
The organization wants Ottawa to bolster independent oversight over the CRA, implement all recommendations of the watchdog report and scrap the agency division that focuses on risks of terrorism financing through registered charities.
Sikander Hashmi, an Ottawa imam, told a Parliament Hill news conference on Thursday that the community’s concerns are not about a few mistakes, but continuing issues with the Review and Analysis Division (RAD) of the revenue agency.
“It’s about a systemic problem that has caused real harm to real people,” said Mr. Hashmi, who also serves as executive director of the Canadian Council of Imams.
“When a mosque spends years under audit, when volunteers and community leaders are tied up answering investigators instead of serving people, when a relief charity loses its ability to issue tax receipts, it’s the community that pays the price.”
Spy watchdog flags ‘lack of rigour’ in CRA audits tied to terrorism
On Thursday, the National Council of Canadian Muslims issued a letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney and Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne outlining its calls for action, supported by a list of mosques, Islamic centres, resource centres and Islamic societies.
“Oversight is important, but it must be fair, transparent and evidence-based,” Mr. Hashmi said. “Right now, many Canadian Muslims feel like their generosity is treated as a threat.
“The goal is not to weaken oversight. The goal is to restore trust.”
The report by the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency earlier this month probed the work of RAD, the division created in 2003 to detect and address the risks to the charitable sector stemming from terrorist abuse, such as charities being used to finance terrorism.
NSIRA is an independent body that reviews and investigates government national-security and intelligence activities to ensure they are lawful, reasonable and necessary. It also looks into public complaints regarding key national security agencies and activities.
Its October report found that a “lack of rigour” in RAD’s processes led to audits of a number of charities that did not have credible risks of terrorist abuse.
Of all the charities whose audits were completed by RAD between 2009 and 2022, 67 per cent were discernably Islamic and 19 per cent Sikh, said the report.
Ahmad Al Qadi of the National Council of Canadian Muslims told Thursday’s news conference that the findings of the report are clear.
“The harms are ongoing, and the responsibility now rests with our government,” he said.
Mr. Al Qadi said his organization has been talking to the federal Finance Department since the NSIRA report was released and is hopeful that action will be taken in line with the community’s concerns.
The organization wants next week’s federal budget to include dedicated funding and is asking for the Office of the Taxpayers’ Ombudsman to serve as an independent oversight body for the revenue agency.
Déborah Cléry, a spokesperson with the Canada Revenue Agency, said in a statement that the agency would not be able to comment in a timely manner on the issues raised by the news conference.
The Prime Minister’s Office and the office of the Finance Minister also did not provide immediate comment.