Jesse Kline: The CRA’s double standard on religious charities

The phrase "Jew free" appears in a word cloud submitted by at least one member of a Muslim youth session when asked what kind of community they wanted. The session took place in Toronto at the Muslim Association of Canada convention on May 18. Photo by Melanie Bennett /Juno News

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Is Canada’s systemic anti-Israel bias and preoccupation with political correctness and “anti-racism” preventing it from taking action against radicalization happening right under our noses?

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The recent revelation that some attendees at a youth-focused talk at last week’s Muslim Association of Canada (MAC) convention in Toronto wrote “Jew free” in answer to a question about “what kind of community” they want to build, and that it was then prominently projected onto a screen with no objections from the audience or organizers, is not the first time the charity has been engulfed in controversy.

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For years, MAC has been the subject of a Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) investigation, with the agency accusing it of being involved in an “apparent Hamas support network” and having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Its conferences regularly feature speakers who oppose Canadian values and support terrorism. While the CRA has stripped eight Jewish non-profits of their charitable status over the past three years, MAC continues to operate as a registered charity and receive significant funds from the federal government.

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In late 2022 and early 2023, MAC led a concerted media campaign arguing that it was being persecuted by the CRA; that it and other Islamic charities were being targeted by the tax agency’s review and analysis division, which handles terrorist-financing investigations, simply because they’re Muslim.

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Yet in October 2023, Global News uncovered a CRA audit letter from 2021, which alleged that MAC “maintained a working relationship” with IRFAN-Canada, helping it raise funds even after it was listed as a terrorist organization for funnelling $14.6 million to “organizations with links to Hamas.” It further alleged that many of the charity’s “members, directors and officials” had ties to “a network of charities that appear to have been used to propagate and fundraise for Hamas,” along with IRFAN-Canada and the Muslim Brotherhood.

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In particular, the letter raised concerns over support the organization’s former president, Wael Haddara, and his successor, Sharaf Sharafeldin (who now serves as president of strategy), had given to the campaign of Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s short-lived Muslim Brotherhood president, and their relationships with “high ranking Muslim Brotherhood officials.”

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None of the allegations were proven and MAC vehemently denied most of the charges. It did, however, acknowledge Haddara and Sharafeldin’s involvement in the Morsi campaign, though it claimed they were simply engaging in a “pro-democracy movement in their home country,” and that their actions do “not mean that MAC … is advancing the interests of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

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Yet MAC’s own website does not shy away from its adherence to the Brotherhood’s ideology, noting that the charity’s “modern roots can be traced to the Islamic revival of the early 20th century, culminating in the movement of the Muslim Brotherhood,” and that the organization “strives to practice Islam” as understood by the “late Imam Hassan Albanna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.”