Director General Appears Before Senate Committee on Terrorist Financing

The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence met on June 1, 2015 to consider Budget 2015, as contained in Bill C-59, and to study and report on security threats facing Canada. This meeting included an appearance by Cathy Hawara, Director General of the Charities Directorate of Canada Revenue Agency, and Alastair Bland, Director, Review and Analysis Division of the Charities Directorate. Among the issues discussed with the Senate Committee concerning the Charities Directorate were terrorist recruitment and financing, and terrorist operations and prosecutions. Specific reference was made to CRA’s Review and Analysis Division, which, among other roles, audits registered charities based on the potential risk of terrorist financing abuse that is posed to the charitablesector and Canadian society as a whole in accordance with international standards set by the Financial Action Task Force.
Following the coming into force of Bill C-51, Ms. Hawara clarified that two separate thresholds would need to be met before the information it possesses could legally be shared. The first threshold would be under the Income Tax Act. CRA would need reasonable grounds to suspect that the information would be relevant to an investigation of a threat to the security of Canada under the CSIS Act or to an investigation of a terrorism offence under the Criminal Code. If this was the case, then CRA would have to consider the second threshold, which is laid out in the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act, as found in Bill C-51, which will come into force on a day to be fixed by order of the Governor in Council. This Act requires that the information also be relevant to the responsibilities of the organization receiving or requesting the information. Ms. Hawara, however, indicated that even if these thresholds are met, CRA would retain discretion over how it will share information in all circumstances.
The Senators in the meeting were intent on learning the processes of CRA, as well as the importance of oversight following the coming into force of Bill C-51, emphasizing that it is crucial to have regular oversight of the employees of the Charities Directorate who are assessing whether information can be shared, as well as the regulator as a whole, in order to function in a way that simultaneously addresses terrorism and retains charitable organizations’ privacy.