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Canada Without Poverty charity challenges Harper govt. audits at UN in Geneva

July 5, 2015

Canada Without Poverty charity challenges Harper govt. audits at UN in Geneva

Ottawa anti-poverty charity in Geneva this week arguing before UN that political-activity audits are an abuse

The head of a small Ottawa-based charity is in Geneva this week to complain to a United Nations committee about the Canada Revenue Agency’s program of political-activity audits.

Harriett McLachlan, president of Canada Without Poverty, is pleading her case before the UN Human Rights Committee, arguing that a special audit program launched by the tax agency in 2012 violates Canada’s international commitments on human rights.

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The UN Human Rights Committee will hear complaints this week from a small Ottawa charity that the Harper government is violating its rights.

McLachlan says a rule limiting to 10 per cent the resources a charity can devote to political activities effectively silences groups like hers that want to hold the Canadian government accountable.

“If we want to write a petition, or be part of some kind of gathering, a protest, there’s a fear there that we are stepping over the bounds,” she said in an interview with CBC News.

“There’s a potential of a gag being put over my mouth.”

Canada under scrutiny

Canada Without Poverty is among 60 charities being hit with political-activity investigations under a $13.4-million special program by the Canada Revenue Agency. The group has been under continuous audit for three years.

The UN Human Rights Committee each year reviews the human-rights records of a handful of the 168 countries that have signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political rights. Canada’s turn comes up this week.

A panel of 18 independent experts will listen to Canadian groups, such as Kairos and Amnesty International Canada, raising issues of human-rights abuses in Canada, including murdered and missing indigenous women, and the residential school abuse of indigenous children.

 

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