What’s going on in Quebec cannot be called protests. The right word is riots.
That’s what you call it when masked vandals smash cars, break windows in banks and shops, night after night. And that’s on top of the smoke bombs thrown in the subway stations earlier this month that paralyzed the city’s transit system.
How is this any different from the Stanley Cup riot in Vancouver?
It is different, of course. It’s worse.
Vancouver’s riot was spontaneous. They weren’t backed up with official NGOs and union organizers and bank accounts and spokesmen and press releases.
The Montreal riots are a criminal industry.
But blame also apportions to the people whose duty it is to stop riots — but who haven’t.
The police, who too often stood by idly because they didn’t want the rough work of a confrontation. Even when peaceful students got a court injunction demanding they be allowed to attend class, the cops refused to enforce the injunction and clear protesters blockading school doorways.
But at the end of the day, the man responsible is the premier, Jean Charest. He is the one who has permitted these riots to stretch for four months.
Worse, he has rewarded it. He negotiated with the rioters. He responded to their law-breaking by allowing them to direct his law-making.
Last week, things took a darker turn. Masked students stormed through universities, going classroom to classroom seeking out students who dared to study and teachers who dared to teach them.
If they found a class going on, they’d storm into the room. Flick the lights on and off. Jump on desks. Shout and scream. And even physically grab students inside, screaming and swearing at them, terrifying them.
When you wear a mask, trespass in schools, hunt down law-abiding students, then disrupt them and physically push them — they are terrified. And if you are doing so to terrorize them into not going to class, and to join your political protest, that is terrorism.
This, in the city where Marc Lepine burst into classes and shot women.
Last Thursday, four months late, Charest proposed a new response: Laws against rioting. And a delay in the school year.
Quebec doesn’t need new laws. The Criminal Code is full of them. Charest always had the tools — he was just too cowardly to use them.
But his plans to cancel the current semester, and reschedule it months from now, is shocking. That is the perfect reward for the protesters, doing what they couldn’t do on their own: Bring Quebec’s universities grinding to a halt.
Charest — not the rioters — has derailed not only students’ education, but also their plans for summer jobs.
Back in 1957, nine black students signed up to all-white Little Rock Central High school. Then, as now, masked protesters wanted to stop it. Then, it was the Ku Klux Klan. And the state’s racist governor, a Democrat named Orval Faubus, deployed the state’s national guard to stop the black kids from going in.
The president at the time, a Republican named Dwight Eisenhower, showed what you do when kids are being illegally blocked from school.
He federalized the state’s national guard, taking it out of the hands of the governor. And he deployed the 101st Airborne Division to escort the black kids in.
That’s what leadership is about. Eisenhower was a leader. He de-segregated the schools. He let the black kids learn.
If the Klan had broken into that school, flicked the lights on and off, shouted at the black kids, and disrupted their studies, do you think Ike would have cancelled the semester? Negotiated with the Klan? He would have sent in soldiers. Not to destroy civil rights. Not Trudeau-style, to put the state under martial law. But to uphold civil law — the right to be free from violence, the right to the rule of law.
Charest is no Eisenhower. He’s Neville Chamberlain, appeasing the rioters. He’s a coward. And the good kids of Montreal are being sold out by him.
This column appeared in the Sun Chain May 19 2012.
That’s what you call it when masked vandals smash cars, break windows in banks and shops, night after night. And that’s on top of the smoke bombs thrown in the subway stations earlier this month that paralyzed the city’s transit system.
How is this any different from the Stanley Cup riot in Vancouver?
It is different, of course. It’s worse.
Vancouver’s riot was spontaneous. They weren’t backed up with official NGOs and union organizers and bank accounts and spokesmen and press releases.
The Montreal riots are a criminal industry.
But blame also apportions to the people whose duty it is to stop riots — but who haven’t.
The police, who too often stood by idly because they didn’t want the rough work of a confrontation. Even when peaceful students got a court injunction demanding they be allowed to attend class, the cops refused to enforce the injunction and clear protesters blockading school doorways.
But at the end of the day, the man responsible is the premier, Jean Charest. He is the one who has permitted these riots to stretch for four months.
Worse, he has rewarded it. He negotiated with the rioters. He responded to their law-breaking by allowing them to direct his law-making.
Last week, things took a darker turn. Masked students stormed through universities, going classroom to classroom seeking out students who dared to study and teachers who dared to teach them.
If they found a class going on, they’d storm into the room. Flick the lights on and off. Jump on desks. Shout and scream. And even physically grab students inside, screaming and swearing at them, terrifying them.
When you wear a mask, trespass in schools, hunt down law-abiding students, then disrupt them and physically push them — they are terrified. And if you are doing so to terrorize them into not going to class, and to join your political protest, that is terrorism.
This, in the city where Marc Lepine burst into classes and shot women.
Last Thursday, four months late, Charest proposed a new response: Laws against rioting. And a delay in the school year.
Quebec doesn’t need new laws. The Criminal Code is full of them. Charest always had the tools — he was just too cowardly to use them.
But his plans to cancel the current semester, and reschedule it months from now, is shocking. That is the perfect reward for the protesters, doing what they couldn’t do on their own: Bring Quebec’s universities grinding to a halt.
Charest — not the rioters — has derailed not only students’ education, but also their plans for summer jobs.
Back in 1957, nine black students signed up to all-white Little Rock Central High school. Then, as now, masked protesters wanted to stop it. Then, it was the Ku Klux Klan. And the state’s racist governor, a Democrat named Orval Faubus, deployed the state’s national guard to stop the black kids from going in.
The president at the time, a Republican named Dwight Eisenhower, showed what you do when kids are being illegally blocked from school.
He federalized the state’s national guard, taking it out of the hands of the governor. And he deployed the 101st Airborne Division to escort the black kids in.
That’s what leadership is about. Eisenhower was a leader. He de-segregated the schools. He let the black kids learn.
If the Klan had broken into that school, flicked the lights on and off, shouted at the black kids, and disrupted their studies, do you think Ike would have cancelled the semester? Negotiated with the Klan? He would have sent in soldiers. Not to destroy civil rights. Not Trudeau-style, to put the state under martial law. But to uphold civil law — the right to be free from violence, the right to the rule of law.
Charest is no Eisenhower. He’s Neville Chamberlain, appeasing the rioters. He’s a coward. And the good kids of Montreal are being sold out by him.
This column appeared in the Sun Chain May 19 2012.
Thomas Mulcair has been a federal MP for five years, yet he has never visited the oilsands in northern Alberta, although he says he’s planning a sojourn sometime this spring.
Which is odd, given that he talks about it every day. But that’s standard practice for the NDP. His fellow NDP MPs, Megan Leslie and Claude Gravelle, flew to Washington, D.C., last November to tell the U.S. Congress about the evils of the oilsands, and asked for them to block the proposed Keystone XL pipeline through which we’d export our oil.
I doubt Leslie or Gravelle has been to Fort McMurray either. They’ve got time to jet around the world, disparaging our industry to foreigners, trashing our own country to strangers. But no time for a trip to the oilsands themselves.
Of course not. They have extremist opinions on the subject. Finding out actual facts about the place might contradict their radical theories. Can’t have that.
But there's something else too. It’s harder to badmouth someone once you’ve looked them in the eye.
And under Mulcair’s leadership, the NDP has gone from merely opposing the oilsands to outright hatred of them. He’s personal about it. Mean, even.
So it would be difficult for Mulcair and his fellow haters to walk the streets of Fort McMurray, to talk to the workers there — blue collar workers, Aboriginal workers, union workers, once-poor workers becoming prosperous now — and tell them that what they are doing is immoral.
For that is Mulcair’s view. He doesn’t just criticize the oilsands industry.
He has a moral disdain for it — it’s much worse, for example, than the asbestos industry in his own beloved Quebec.
Every industry can be criticized; every public policy can be debated. But that is not what Mulcair is doing. He is demonizing. Because he is a politician. And politicians demonize and polarize. They look at polls and make cold-blooded calculations. Mulcair is betting the western Canadians he is slandering wouldn’t vote for him anyways.
But maybe more voters in Ontario and Quebec will because of it.
He’s not betting on the best of human nature. He’s betting on the worst.
He’s counting on it. He’s not trying to heal regional rifts amongst Canadian regions. He’s looking for the opportunities if he pours salt into old wounds.
This scorched earth approach to national unity took a truly bizarre turn last week. Here’s what Mulcair said about the oilsands in Parliament: “We’re allowing these companies to use the air, the soil and the water as an unlimited free dumping ground. Their model for development is Nigeria instead of Norway.”
Seriously. He compared the practices of Canadians working in the oilsands to Nigeria — a country with kleptocrats who have stolen a third of a trillion dollars from their own people; brutal dictators have murdered critics of the regime; environmental devastation; abject poverty; the slow-burn civil war.
Mulcair actually said that is the model chosen by Canadian companies. That is how we live and work. He compared us to them. That’s how low we are in his eyes.
When the NDP was the third or fourth party, such bozo eruptions were good for a chuckle. But Thomas Mulcair is the leader of the opposition now, theoretically the man standing by to form a government if the Conservatives fall.
Put aside his socialism and economic illiteracy. His raw hatred for half of Canada must disqualify him from ever leading us.
This column appeared in the Sun Chain May 19 2012.
Which is odd, given that he talks about it every day. But that’s standard practice for the NDP. His fellow NDP MPs, Megan Leslie and Claude Gravelle, flew to Washington, D.C., last November to tell the U.S. Congress about the evils of the oilsands, and asked for them to block the proposed Keystone XL pipeline through which we’d export our oil.
I doubt Leslie or Gravelle has been to Fort McMurray either. They’ve got time to jet around the world, disparaging our industry to foreigners, trashing our own country to strangers. But no time for a trip to the oilsands themselves.
Of course not. They have extremist opinions on the subject. Finding out actual facts about the place might contradict their radical theories. Can’t have that.
But there's something else too. It’s harder to badmouth someone once you’ve looked them in the eye.
And under Mulcair’s leadership, the NDP has gone from merely opposing the oilsands to outright hatred of them. He’s personal about it. Mean, even.
So it would be difficult for Mulcair and his fellow haters to walk the streets of Fort McMurray, to talk to the workers there — blue collar workers, Aboriginal workers, union workers, once-poor workers becoming prosperous now — and tell them that what they are doing is immoral.
For that is Mulcair’s view. He doesn’t just criticize the oilsands industry.
He has a moral disdain for it — it’s much worse, for example, than the asbestos industry in his own beloved Quebec.
Every industry can be criticized; every public policy can be debated. But that is not what Mulcair is doing. He is demonizing. Because he is a politician. And politicians demonize and polarize. They look at polls and make cold-blooded calculations. Mulcair is betting the western Canadians he is slandering wouldn’t vote for him anyways.
But maybe more voters in Ontario and Quebec will because of it.
He’s not betting on the best of human nature. He’s betting on the worst.
He’s counting on it. He’s not trying to heal regional rifts amongst Canadian regions. He’s looking for the opportunities if he pours salt into old wounds.
This scorched earth approach to national unity took a truly bizarre turn last week. Here’s what Mulcair said about the oilsands in Parliament: “We’re allowing these companies to use the air, the soil and the water as an unlimited free dumping ground. Their model for development is Nigeria instead of Norway.”
Seriously. He compared the practices of Canadians working in the oilsands to Nigeria — a country with kleptocrats who have stolen a third of a trillion dollars from their own people; brutal dictators have murdered critics of the regime; environmental devastation; abject poverty; the slow-burn civil war.
Mulcair actually said that is the model chosen by Canadian companies. That is how we live and work. He compared us to them. That’s how low we are in his eyes.
When the NDP was the third or fourth party, such bozo eruptions were good for a chuckle. But Thomas Mulcair is the leader of the opposition now, theoretically the man standing by to form a government if the Conservatives fall.
Put aside his socialism and economic illiteracy. His raw hatred for half of Canada must disqualify him from ever leading us.
This column appeared in the Sun Chain May 19 2012.
Ezra is joined by economist, Frank Atkins to discuss Thomas Mulcair's bizarre comparison of Canada to Nigeria.
This segment aired on The Source May 18 2012.
Sun contributor Monte Solberg joins Ezra to explain how economic development can co-exist with environmental protection.
This segment aired on The Source May 18 2012.
MPP Randy Hillier joins to discuss his efforts to amend the Constitution to include property rights.
This segment aired on The Source May 17th 2012.
Ezra voices his displeasure with the Quebec student protesters, and his disappointment with the province’s leadership in handling the issue.
This segment aired on The Source May 17 2012.
Jeff Rubin, author of ‘The End of Growth’, on what he believes is the answer to high oil prices.
This segment aired on The Source May 17 2012.
Brad Wall talks to Ezra about his reaction to Mulcair calling Western premiers Harper’s messengers.
This segment aired on The Source May 17 2012.
Ezra Levant on the United Nations recent criticisms of Canada’s violation of counterfeit food rights, despite being rated one of the world’s greatest countries to live in.
This segment aired on The Source May 16 2012.
Senator Mike Duffy weighs in on the food fight between Canada and the UN.
This segment aired on The Source May 16 2012.
Senator Mike Duffy on Mulcair’s bad economics that are creating division across Canada.
This segment aired on The Source May 16 2012.
Ezra Levant gives his take on the continuing Attaran saga.
This segment aired on The Source May 16 2012.
Kansas state representative, Peggy Mast, on the passing of her state’s anti-sharia bill.
This segment aired on The Source May 15 2012.
Liberal media darling Amir Attaran is a big fan of freedom of information requests, except about when they're targeted at him. Ezra Levant has more.
This segment aired on The Source May 15 2012.
John Mortimer of Labour Watch, on why Canadians should get behind Bill C-377 in unlocking union transparency.
This segment aired on The Source May 15 2012.
Three weeks ago, some of the student protesters in Montreal thought they needed to ratchet up their antics.
They had been complaining that Quebec’s university students were hard done by, so they went “on strike.” But it wasn’t convincing.
The majority of students know a student strike is just code for skipping class. For most kids, who actually are trying to get a degree to get a job in this uncertain economy, a student strike could jeopardize their exams. And a student strike doesn’t make sense to taxpayers. It’s tough to be sympathetic to university students who pay the lowest tuition in the country — and who still will pay the lowest in the country, even after the modest increases will be enacted, many years from now.
So what do you do if your protest is fizzling? If it’s not winning big media coverage, and if the coverage it is receiving isn’t positive? Well, normal students would probably go back to school.
But these protests weren’t being led by normal students. They were being orchestrated by radicals and professional activists.
Time to try out a new tactic.
And so on Wednesday, April 25, protesters threw homemade incendiary devices. No one was killed — they were smoke bombs, really. But they were terrifying for the people who were caught in them.
That day, the protest was no longer a protest. Because its central characteristic was no longer an exchange of ideas, a debate, a counter-argument to the government’s tuition proposals. It ceased being a protest and became a riot. Because it was no longer about persuasion. It was about terrifying and threatening any doubters.
These weren’t random acts. They were co-ordinated. Smoke bombs were thrown in two Montreal subway stations.
Just to state the obvious: A bomb is not an argument. A bomb signals the end of an argument — the transition from peace to violence, from democracy to terrorism.
Yes, terrorism. What else does the word mean? Promoting political change by instilling fear in your opponent’s mind. Terrorism does not have to kill anyone to be terrifying.
So, faced with organized, planned, co-ordinated political violence, what did Jean Charest do? He gave the rioters what they wanted. He agreed to water down his already modest tuition increases, and to delay them.
He rewarded the violence.
But as Rudyard Kipling would say, once you pay the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane.
The students saw a simple cause and effect — ramp up the extremism and get results. Go violent, get concessions.
If a few smoke bombs that shut down the subway for half an hour could do that, imagine what a large, concerted bombing effort could do?
And so it came to pass. Last week, student rioters set off bombs in the subway, billowing smoke through the system, shutting down the whole thing. More than 100,000 passengers were affected. The Montreal Board of Trade estimated that for every hour the subway was down, the city lost $11 million in business.
After the bombs went off last week, Charest told reporters, “It’s inexplicable. There’s no reason to commit acts of intimidation and violence.”
Really? Inexplicable means it can’t be explained.
No reason to commit acts of intimidation? Why, there is every reason indeed. This can be explained. There is a reason. And the reason is that Jean Charest has rewarded this violence with concessions.
And so he should expect more of it.
This column appeared across the Sun Chain May 15 2012.
They had been complaining that Quebec’s university students were hard done by, so they went “on strike.” But it wasn’t convincing.
The majority of students know a student strike is just code for skipping class. For most kids, who actually are trying to get a degree to get a job in this uncertain economy, a student strike could jeopardize their exams. And a student strike doesn’t make sense to taxpayers. It’s tough to be sympathetic to university students who pay the lowest tuition in the country — and who still will pay the lowest in the country, even after the modest increases will be enacted, many years from now.
So what do you do if your protest is fizzling? If it’s not winning big media coverage, and if the coverage it is receiving isn’t positive? Well, normal students would probably go back to school.
But these protests weren’t being led by normal students. They were being orchestrated by radicals and professional activists.
Time to try out a new tactic.
And so on Wednesday, April 25, protesters threw homemade incendiary devices. No one was killed — they were smoke bombs, really. But they were terrifying for the people who were caught in them.
That day, the protest was no longer a protest. Because its central characteristic was no longer an exchange of ideas, a debate, a counter-argument to the government’s tuition proposals. It ceased being a protest and became a riot. Because it was no longer about persuasion. It was about terrifying and threatening any doubters.
These weren’t random acts. They were co-ordinated. Smoke bombs were thrown in two Montreal subway stations.
Just to state the obvious: A bomb is not an argument. A bomb signals the end of an argument — the transition from peace to violence, from democracy to terrorism.
Yes, terrorism. What else does the word mean? Promoting political change by instilling fear in your opponent’s mind. Terrorism does not have to kill anyone to be terrifying.
So, faced with organized, planned, co-ordinated political violence, what did Jean Charest do? He gave the rioters what they wanted. He agreed to water down his already modest tuition increases, and to delay them.
He rewarded the violence.
But as Rudyard Kipling would say, once you pay the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane.
The students saw a simple cause and effect — ramp up the extremism and get results. Go violent, get concessions.
If a few smoke bombs that shut down the subway for half an hour could do that, imagine what a large, concerted bombing effort could do?
And so it came to pass. Last week, student rioters set off bombs in the subway, billowing smoke through the system, shutting down the whole thing. More than 100,000 passengers were affected. The Montreal Board of Trade estimated that for every hour the subway was down, the city lost $11 million in business.
After the bombs went off last week, Charest told reporters, “It’s inexplicable. There’s no reason to commit acts of intimidation and violence.”
Really? Inexplicable means it can’t be explained.
No reason to commit acts of intimidation? Why, there is every reason indeed. This can be explained. There is a reason. And the reason is that Jean Charest has rewarded this violence with concessions.
And so he should expect more of it.
This column appeared across the Sun Chain May 15 2012.
Ezra Levant looks at how the Quebec student protests have been hijacked by an undercurrent of violence.
This segment aired on The Source May 14 2012.
David Yerushalmi talks about his efforts to outlaw Sharia law in the United States.
This segment aired on The Source May 14 2012.
McGill University Student, Marc Fortin, on why he takes issue with the rioters blockading and preventing hard-working students from going to class in Montreal.
This segment aired on The Source May 14 2012.
There’s a radical lobby group based in the most left-wing city in North America, namely San Francisco. It’s called the Tides Foundation. It’s where left-wing billionaires funnel their money to promote radical causes.
A few years ago, they decided to colonize Canada. So they set up a branch plant in Vancouver, called Tides Canada Foundation. And they got charitable tax status from Revenue Canada.
That was very important. Because it let them issue charitable tax receipts to donors, in effect making the Canadian government subsidize those donations.
So they got a coveted charity number. In return, they had to abide by the law. Substantially all of their work had to be truly charitable — less than 10% was allowed to be political in any way. And zero percent was allowed to be partisan.
They got that charity status. And so the Trojan Horse was in. And once they got their charity number, they started funnelling money to their favourite left-wing causes — but still using their charitable tax receipts for that.
It’s hard to get a charity number. You have to do something truly charitable. Food banks, schools, hospitals, that kind of thing. It’s not for political groups or groups that “raise awareness.”
You can’t just be a charity in your own mind — it has to be something that everyone in the community believes in. Like food banks. Not like political protests against the oilsands. Or for the oilsands, for that matter. Nothing in public dispute like that.
But Tides isn’t really about boring things like food banks. They love radical left-wing politics. And so once we gave them a charity number, they could hardly wait to share it with all of their friends.
Here’s how it would work. Take a left-wing group that could never, ever qualify as a charity itself — say, the animal rights extremists called People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). They could never give their donors a charitable tax credit.
No problem. Tides Canada agreed to lend their charity number to PETA. Revenue Canada would never allow that. But Tides just did it.
They weren’t even secret about it. They turned it into a business model. They did it hundreds of times.
Remember Brigette DePape? She was that Senate page who stood in the middle of Parliament holding up a sign saying “Stop Harper.” Well, now she’s part of an extremist lobby group called the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition. It’s a political group, obviously. They don’t do public service like helping the elderly, or training seeing-eye dogs. They are a pressure group against the government. That’s fine — but it ain’t a charity.
No problem — Tides Canada is happy to lend their charitable number to DePape’s political group.
Same thing with ForestEthics, the ironically named lobby group that tries to convince American companies to boycott Canadian goods and services that have something to do with the oilsands. It’s anti-Canadian sabotage. It’s not illegal — even idiots have the right to free speech. But it sure isn’t charity.
Well, no problem. Up until last month, Tides Canada was happy to lend their charity number to ForestEthics to fund its job-killing campaign. (ForestEthics announced in April it was splitting from Tides Canada — and giving up its charitable status — so it can take on more political activity). There’s a term for this: Money laundering.
Big donors — including big U.S. donors — used Tides Canada’s charity number to pay less tax than if they gave the money directly to non-charitable groups.
Tides Canada was literally renting out its charity number to non-charities — they charged a 10% commission. For that fee, they allowed political donors to get tax shelters they didn’t deserve. And to even remain anonymous while doing it.
So non-charitable donations to political groups were being laundered through Tides Canada’s charity number — depriving Canadian taxpayers of thousands, perhaps millions of dollars in taxes, and funnelling it straight to groups who would never, on their own, be allowed to give a charitable receipt.
None of this is in dispute. The only question left is, why is Revenue Minister Gail Shea allowing it?
This column appeared in the Sun News chain May 12 2012.
A few years ago, they decided to colonize Canada. So they set up a branch plant in Vancouver, called Tides Canada Foundation. And they got charitable tax status from Revenue Canada.
That was very important. Because it let them issue charitable tax receipts to donors, in effect making the Canadian government subsidize those donations.
So they got a coveted charity number. In return, they had to abide by the law. Substantially all of their work had to be truly charitable — less than 10% was allowed to be political in any way. And zero percent was allowed to be partisan.
They got that charity status. And so the Trojan Horse was in. And once they got their charity number, they started funnelling money to their favourite left-wing causes — but still using their charitable tax receipts for that.
It’s hard to get a charity number. You have to do something truly charitable. Food banks, schools, hospitals, that kind of thing. It’s not for political groups or groups that “raise awareness.”
You can’t just be a charity in your own mind — it has to be something that everyone in the community believes in. Like food banks. Not like political protests against the oilsands. Or for the oilsands, for that matter. Nothing in public dispute like that.
But Tides isn’t really about boring things like food banks. They love radical left-wing politics. And so once we gave them a charity number, they could hardly wait to share it with all of their friends.
Here’s how it would work. Take a left-wing group that could never, ever qualify as a charity itself — say, the animal rights extremists called People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). They could never give their donors a charitable tax credit.
No problem. Tides Canada agreed to lend their charity number to PETA. Revenue Canada would never allow that. But Tides just did it.
They weren’t even secret about it. They turned it into a business model. They did it hundreds of times.
Remember Brigette DePape? She was that Senate page who stood in the middle of Parliament holding up a sign saying “Stop Harper.” Well, now she’s part of an extremist lobby group called the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition. It’s a political group, obviously. They don’t do public service like helping the elderly, or training seeing-eye dogs. They are a pressure group against the government. That’s fine — but it ain’t a charity.
No problem — Tides Canada is happy to lend their charitable number to DePape’s political group.
Same thing with ForestEthics, the ironically named lobby group that tries to convince American companies to boycott Canadian goods and services that have something to do with the oilsands. It’s anti-Canadian sabotage. It’s not illegal — even idiots have the right to free speech. But it sure isn’t charity.
Well, no problem. Up until last month, Tides Canada was happy to lend their charity number to ForestEthics to fund its job-killing campaign. (ForestEthics announced in April it was splitting from Tides Canada — and giving up its charitable status — so it can take on more political activity). There’s a term for this: Money laundering.
Big donors — including big U.S. donors — used Tides Canada’s charity number to pay less tax than if they gave the money directly to non-charitable groups.
Tides Canada was literally renting out its charity number to non-charities — they charged a 10% commission. For that fee, they allowed political donors to get tax shelters they didn’t deserve. And to even remain anonymous while doing it.
So non-charitable donations to political groups were being laundered through Tides Canada’s charity number — depriving Canadian taxpayers of thousands, perhaps millions of dollars in taxes, and funnelling it straight to groups who would never, on their own, be allowed to give a charitable receipt.
None of this is in dispute. The only question left is, why is Revenue Minister Gail Shea allowing it?
This column appeared in the Sun News chain May 12 2012.
Menzies on the hunt for Jean Charest’s, ahem, balls on the streets of Montreal.
This segment aired on The Source May 10 2012.
Ezra continues his expose on the Tides Canada Foundation uncharitable behavior
This segment aired on The Source May 10 2012.
John Carpay, president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, on the free speech victory in Alberta where the appeal court ruled in favour of students’ rights to criticize professors on Facebook, much to the U of C’s chagrin.
This segment aired on The Source May 10 2012.
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