Transcript
Speaker: Hello and welcome to today's episode of Red Eye. I'm Jane Williams. On the podcast today I talk with Nabil Sultan of the Muslim Association of Canada about a recent Ontario court ruling that recognizes bias in a CRA audit but allows it to continue.
Speaker: A recent ruling by the Ontario Superior Court marks an important acknowledgment in the ongoing battle against systemic Islamophobia. Two weeks ago, Justice Marcus Conan recognized that the Muslim Association of Canada faced differential and bias treatment during a Canada Revenue Agency audit. However, the judge stopped short of intervening in the federal examination.
Speaker: To find out more, I'm joined by Nabil Sultan, Communications and Community Engagement Director at the Muslim Association of Canada. Hello, Nabil. Hi there. It's great to have you on the show today. Thank you for having me. Tell me a little bit about the Muslim Association of Canada. First of all, what kind of work do you do?
Speaker: So the Muslim Association of Canada is Canada's largest grassroots Muslim organization. We have chapters across the country, 13 chapters in all. We run dozens of mosques, community centers, and schools.
Speaker: And we serve somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 ,000 Muslim Canadians. So we offer religious services. We offer educational services, both to the Muslim community and beyond. And we support the needs of the growing Muslim community in this country, including social needs and other types of activities that give new immigrants, for example, a sense of belonging and comfort in their new home in Canada.
Speaker: And so it is an organization that's quite engaged with the community on a number of fronts. When did the CRA audit process start? So this would go all the way back to about 2015 or so when the process started and we learned that MAC had been flagged by the CRA for an audit. And what happens during an audit like this?
Speaker: So this was our first audit as a charity. And so we engaged with the process quite actively. And it's something that any charity expects to do. And we expected it to be a routine affair. But very quickly, we came to realize that this was not a normal audit. In terms of the individuals who were involved, in terms of the line of questioning that was being asked, in terms of how invasive
Speaker: the audit was. Many centers across the country had their computers fully downloaded. Questions around terrorism financing were asked and it became clear that the prism by which the audit was taking place was a security, what was done through a security lens. And then we discovered afterwards that there's actually
Speaker: a division within the CRA that the audit fell under called RAD, the Review and Analysis Division, and that that is very different than a usual routine financial audit that the CRA would conduct with other types of charities. And is it the case that it was particularly because you're a Muslim charity that this division was being used? Yes. So we came to understand that the Review and Analysis Division, this RAD division,
Speaker: was established in the aftermath of September 11th and through the prism of Muslims representing a security threat in the country and representing, and Muslim charities representing a terrorism financing threat. And so this division was established to counteract that threat and to target that threat and to assess Muslim charities within that framing.
Speaker: The Muslim Association of Canada filed a charter challenge of the audit in April last year. Why did you decide to do that? So we took that decision because as the audit took place, it became clear that MAC was being treated in a biased way and that there was active discrimination in Islamophobia within the process of the audit itself.
Speaker: This was quite evident in terms of how MAC was selected for an audit, but also how the audit itself was conducted. And then what made it very clear to us that there was clear systemic discrimination in the audit was a letter that we received from the CRA
Speaker: a couple of years ago now, called an administrative fairness letter where the CRA outlines all of the findings that they have and states a number of allegations based on those findings and frankly threats of the organization being revoked in terms of its charitable status, penalized or suspended. And these threats were recurrent in this huge document
Speaker: and the way the document was laid out and the type of evidence that the document used and the conclusions or the assumptions made within the document were clearly coming from an Islamophobic perspective and lens. And so we, because this is not just
Speaker: the experience of MAC, but it's been the experience of several other Muslim charities over the last few years. And this systemic discrimination that MAC experienced has been well -documented in several reports, and two significant independent reports outline the CRA's systemic discrimination. We were left with very few options to fight back against this, except with a charter challenge.
Speaker: Talk to me about some of the allegations that the CRA has made that you think are indicative of systemic bias.
Speaker: So basically there's a number of things but to use a couple examples that sort of hit home the problem is that activities that MAC and other Muslim charities do that would be considered completely harmless, benign and normal by other charities get flagged by the CRA as problematic with MAC. So one of those examples is
Speaker: youth activities, youth social activities which are the mainstay of all religious charities were flagged by CRA as being non -religious enough and being social rather than religious and being outside of the mandate of a religious charity and therefore a reason for possible suspension or fining. Another example was
Speaker: The Eid activities that MAC conducts, the Eid celebrations, were deemed by the CRA to be not religious enough and social in nature and therefore again reason for penalties against MAC. When it would be clear and the judge acknowledged this as well, that Christian or Jewish charities doing the exact same activities, it is
Speaker: incomprehensible that the CRA would have come to the same conclusions about those activities. Because those are activities that are conducted regularly by charities and are never flagged. So it was those kinds of disproportionate assessments by the CRA against Muslim charities that are at the heart of the problem we're facing. So it would be kind of like saying a Christmas party was not religious.
Speaker: Exactly. So you can't imagine calling a Christmas party not religious enough, calling a youth activity in a synagogue or church as being not religious enough, a sports activity that's done in the soccer fields outside of a church as being not religious enough. We can't imagine those scenarios, but those are exactly the scenarios that the Muslim charities have to deal with. What did Justice Conan say in his ruling?
Speaker: So what he acknowledged in his ruling, which we were happy with because it was important for the Supreme Court of Ontario to recognize that there was discrimination. There is evidence of discrimination and bias in how Mac was treated by the CRA. And the judge himself stated that he acknowledges that and that he cannot imagine that other faith denominations would have been treated in the same way in examples like this and others that he points out in his ruling.
Speaker: But he decided not to intervene. But he decided not to intervene. And so essentially what the judge has said is while I do recognize that there is discrimination here, the process, the official process of the CRA audit has not yet come to a complete conclusion.
Speaker: and therefore he essentially said that his hands are tied and said that it was premature for the court to rule on this case and that Mac would essentially have to go through the entire process of the CRA audit to its full conclusion before Mac can seek a remedy of the case. The issue we have with this is that Mac's charter challenge was never about the
Speaker: result or conclusion of the CRA but it was about the audit itself being discriminatory and manifesting systemic Islamophobia and discrimination and therefore we felt if the judge had recognized that then there should and there is legal precedence for the judge to step in and say you know the process of the audit is government action
Speaker: and therefore falls within the scope of the judge ruling on it and forcing the CRA to course correct. And you filed the challenge under freedom of religion, freedom of association, equality, a lot of things that from what you've been telling me, the audit appears to infringe. That's right. That's right. And regardless of the conclusion,
Speaker: The document that we received that the judge was able to review clearly demonstrated that those charter rights were violated in our case. And that's why we are ultimately disappointed with the judge's decision to rule on the case with prematurity. What's at stake for the Muslim Association of Canada?
Speaker: What's at stake for MAC is that it means that we have to continue with a process that has been recognized as being biased and discriminatory because the judge has essentially prioritized
Speaker: government process and bureaucracy over the Charter rights of Canadians and so we must continue with it with a process that itself is fundamentally flawed and we must await the final determination. We must then engage within the government of their subsequent steps afterwards and only until we come to the final conclusion of that process can we turn around and go back to remedy
Speaker: the situation in a charter challenge, for example. And so it means for MAC that we must continue in a process for potentially several more years that is fundamentally problematic, that is very costful for the organization. It requires a huge amount of financial and human resources to remain in an audit like this. It creates a chilling effect in the community against the organization.
Speaker: and it cripples the organization on many fronts and this is what MAC has had to deal with and what other organization Muslim charities have had to deal with and what it means for the broader Muslim charity sector is that they are being told that no matter how bad and no matter how biased and how discriminatory the government processes are you have to put up with it and you have no remedy in the courts
Speaker: And good luck, essentially, is what we're being told. And so it leaves the Muslim community feeling like we have no access to a solution to our problem. Everyone recognizes that there is systemic discrimination. The prime minister, some time ago, called it out himself and said, you know, we know that the CRA and its treatment of Muslim charities is a problem. We've gone to political stakeholders and to politicians and we've asked to find a solution to this problem. And it hasn't been found politically.
Speaker: We've now gone to the courts to find a solution and we haven't been able to find a legal solution to this problem. And so it really leaves the community in a corner without any potential remedy to systemic discrimination. Are you going to appeal the ruling?
Speaker: So we are still studying the option of appealing the ruling and with our lawyers and the legal chances of an appeal to succeed given the judge's framing of the problem we are still assessing. Every decision like that comes with a heavy cost. And so MAC as a charity that relies on donations has to take a decision like that very carefully. Well, thank you so much for speaking with me today, Nabil. Oh, you're welcome. And thank you for having me.
Speaker: I've been speaking with Nabil Sultan, Communications and Community Engagement Director at the Muslim Association of Canada. The Red Eye Collective is based in Vancouver. You can check us out at coopradio .org slash redeye.
