Canada’s largest Muslim organization is launching a Charter challenge against the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), claiming a multi-year audit being conducted on the charity has been biased and is Islamophobic..The Muslim Association of Canada (MAC) is a Canadian, independent, national faith-based, charitable organization that provides services and programs for holistic education and personal development for Canadian Muslims..MAC claims the audit is discriminatory and has infringed the charity’s Charter rights..MAC is filing a notice of application to the Ontario Superior Court in an attempt to shut down the CRA’s auditing process that began seven years ago..The charity exists to develop community service, cultivate education and youth empowerment. It says more than 150,000 Canadians use its mosques, schools, and community centres each year. It operates in 13 cities throughout Canada..The association claims in the court filing since the revenue agency audit began in 2015, it has been “tainted throughout by systemic bias and Islamophobia.”.“MAC has and continues to fully cooperate with the audit,” a press release published Wednesday announced. “Although no decision has been made, the prejudiced audit report threatens MAC with extreme sanctions that are completely unjustified by the findings of the audit report.”.“The audit would never have been approached in the way it has been had the organization in question been Christian, Jewish or Hindu,” said Geoff Hall, lawyer at McCarthy Tétrault LLP. “Facts which are innocuous, and that would be regarded as such for a faith-based organization of a religion other than Islam, have been taken as a basis for suspicion of MAC and its activities.” .The CRA alleges that MAC activities, such religious Eid celebrations, are not religious but rather social. Imagine an audit concluding that a Christian charity could not hold a Christmas party.The CRA alleges that MAC’s sports, social, and recreational activities directed at youth do not provide a charitable benefit. Imagine an audit concluding that a Sikh Gurdwara could not hold youth activities.Of the tens of thousands of emails reviewed in the Audit, the CRA points to a grand total of four unsolicited conference invitations sent by mass email transmissions, as alleged evidence that there are links between MAC and foreign entities. None of these were ever replied to. Imagine an audit concluding that members of another religious charity could not maintain contacts with individuals around the world belonging to the same denomination. .McCarthy Tétrault LLP is a large Canadian law firm with offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montréal, Québec City, London, UK, as well as New York City.. MACImage courtesy shafaqna.com .“In each of these examples and others, the CRA perceives such perfectly normal interactions as sinister and deceptive. Most importantly, the audit report did not find any evidence whatsoever that MAC is involved in terrorist financing or affiliated with terrorist organizations. Nevertheless, the audit report relies upon Islamophobic sources and discredited newspaper articles to support its allegations,” MAC’s press release said..“This Audit is a textbook example of prejudice and discrimination. The Charter challenge will explore instances in which the CRA attempted to apply to MAC standards that would, and could never justifiably, be applied to any other community of faith,” said Hall..The CRA has already come under fire for Islamophobic behaviour, according to MAC..“Last year, two extensive independent reports were published by the University of Toronto’s Institute of Islamic Studies and the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group that found that the CRA Review and Analysis Division (RAD) has implicit biases and practices, and that RAD was unfairly targeting Muslim charities with prejudiced audits,” the release said..CRA conduct was the subject of the National Action Summit on Islamophobia, where Prime Minister Trudeau commented that “[there’s] no question that there is work to be done within government to dismantle systemic racism and Islamophobia.”.MAC’s court application seeks an order to halt the audit and to confirm MAC’s rights have been infringed under sections 2(a) (freedom of religion), 2(b) (freedom of expression), 2(d) (freedom of association) and 15 (equality) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms..Amanda Brown is a reporter with the Western Standard.,.abrown@westernstandardonline.com.Twitter: @WS_JournoAmanda
