The tax authorities accuse the MAC of associating with extremism

The Canada Revenue Agency’s counterterrorism team says it has uncovered “troubling” links between a Hamas support network and leaders of the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC), an Islamist group that has received millions of dollars in public funds in recent years.

“The involvement of directors/employees in an apparent network of support for Hamas is troubling,” says Julianne Myska, an IRS employee responsible for auditing MAC finances, in an affidavit dated December 2022 and filed before the Superior Court of Ontario.

Hamas has been listed as a terrorist group banned in Canada since 2002. Anyone who directly or indirectly contributes to its activities risks 10 years in prison.

More generally, “the preliminary results of the audit seem to suggest that [la MAC] is linked to individuals or groups associated with extremism, violence and/or terrorism,” specifies the Agency in a letter written in 2021 and filed in court.

The MAC, which manages around ten establishments in Quebec and more than fifty in Canada, vigorously denies any link with terrorism or extremism. She asserts that “from its beginning, the audit was colored by systemic bias and Islamophobia” (see other text). She claims to promote a “moderate, balanced and constructive” Islam.

The tax authorities do not seem convinced.

In 2015, the Revenue Agency team responsible for applying the Anti-terrorism law triggered an audit of the association: officials made 30 visits to MAC offices, conducted 27 interviews, analyzed 1 million financial transactions and combed through 416,000 emails. The process is supposed to be confidential, but the MAC revealed its existence as part of a process to challenge its validity, because it would violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, according to it.

The protest has failed so far, but it has allowed The Press to have exceptional access to thousands of pages of evidence filed at the Toronto courthouse by the Revenue Agency in order to justify its approach. Based on this evidence, the tax authorities are threatening to revoke the MAC’s charitable status, which allows it to provide its donors with tax receipts. So far, the evidence has not been tested in court. The MAC has a period of time to contest the audit findings. She believes that the authorities’ final verdict, which is still not public, will demonstrate that she has succeeded in debunking all their allegations.

The standoff takes place as the organization receives millions of dollars in public funds each year, notably from the federal government, as part of programs to combat hate crimes, renovate certain facilities and organize sports, educational or cultural.

The Ontario government also provided $225,000 in funding to the MAC last year to produce video clips against Islamophobia. One of the capsules cited the “law on secularism in Quebec” as an example of Islamophobic legislation. The affair had irritated the Quebec government.

From Hamas front groups

Audit documents reveal that officials were alarmed to discover that a dozen leaders who had held important positions at the MAC were former members or collaborators of Hamas front groups that had closed shop under pressure from the authorities. .

According to the evidence filed, the MAC was once housed at the same address as the Middle East Information Center, a now-defunct group that was considered by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) to be a legal front for Hamas in the country. . A former leader of this facade was also briefly president of the MAC.

The audit also revealed that a MAC school in Montreal once had among its administrators a certain Mohamed Zrig, who is now a member of an Islamist party in the Tunisian Parliament. In the early 2000s, Mr. Zrig was denied refugee status in Canada due to his complicity in a series of crimes in Tunisia, including bombings, arson, acid throwing at face of citizens and plans for political assassinations.

The tax authorities also accuse the MAC of having supported for years a Canadian charity whose status had been revoked because it served as a financing unit for Hamas.

This organization, called International Relief for the Afflicted and Needy (IRFAN), received approximately $300,000 directly from the MAC before being sanctioned by the authorities. In 2011, it lost its charitable privileges because an audit found it had transferred $14.6 million to Hamas. Despite everything, over the following years, MAC reportedly continued to help IRFAN raise funds. The relationship with IRFAN continued “well after the revocation of its status for, in particular, having [soutenu] the registered terrorist entity Hamas,” says the Revenue Agency.

For example, the MAC allegedly used its mailing lists to help IRFAN solicit donations, in addition to welcoming it to its events to raise money.

The court documents also highlight that a former leader of IRFAN was already president of the MAC for several years. “The involvement of administrators/employees [de la MAC] in an apparent network of support for Hamas […] could indicate the reason why certain activities, such as continued support for IRFAN-Canada, were undertaken by the organization,” the officials say.

Links between the two groups were documented until 2014. In March of that year, an RCMP officer who was spying on an IRFAN fundraiser observed the man entering a Montreal MAC establishment , only to emerge holding a large envelope, which he suspected was filled with money, according to an affidavit filed in court. An undercover agent also entered IRFAN headquarters and saw a MAC recognition plaque. The following month, Ottawa added IRFAN to the list of prohibited terrorist entities, which signaled the end of its activities.

Disturbing relationships

A few years ago, the MAC openly claimed to be part of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist movement created in Egypt in 1928 to promote the establishment of governments based on Sharia law in the Arab world. Hamas also claimed to be part of this movement until 2017. Today, on its website, the MAC simply says it follows the thinking of Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood to whom it attributes “the articulation of the ‘Islamism’. She no longer mentions the group itself.

In discussions with the Revenue Agency, MAC leaders explained that they only adhere to a school of thought, not a political group as such. But reading the group’s internal correspondence convinced the tax authorities otherwise.

“The Canada Revenue Agency considers the organization’s statements to be contradictory and not representative of what is recorded in its own books and documentation,” read the court documents. According to the tax authorities, MAC works for the benefit of the Muslim Brotherhood organization, a political movement which is not a charity within the meaning of the law.

Officials note that in addition to his duties in Canada, a MAC leader served as personal advisor to Mohamed Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood leader elected president of Egypt in 2012 and overthrown by the army in 2013. The leaders internationals of the Muslim Brotherhood would have even consulted the president of the MAC to obtain his opinion on certain appointments, according to the Agency.

Another international link that concerns officials: MAC received $2.5 million from a Qatari charity that is part of the “Union of Good,” an alliance said to have been “created by the Hamas leadership.” to transfer funds to the terrorist organization,” according to the U.S. government. Other sources of financing in the Persian Gulf also raised eyebrows among officials.

“The Canada Revenue Agency has not found evidence to suggest that the organization is directly influenced by its foreign donors, but the fact that some of these donors are known to promote extremist ideology or associate with groups terrorism is a concern,” court documents state.

Concerning comments

The tax authorities also looked into the message conveyed by the leaders of the MAC.

“Some public statements by individuals involved in MAC […] appeared to glorify or encourage violence, including murder, or undermine women’s rights,” states the evidence filed in court.

Officials cite a speech at an assembly that talked about forcing women to provide sex on demand to their husbands or they would be damned. Another statement referred to “killing Zionists.” The IRS also noted that a MAC leader in Ontario retweeted Hamas posts 34 times on his Twitter account.

Officials also return to a controversy from 2011, the year when the MAC invited a British speaker to Montreal who encouraged the stoning of homosexuals. They note that before his speech, MAC prepared a statement with a public relations firm clarifying that it did not conduct background checks on its speakers.

Generally, officials argue that the internal documentation reviewed suggests that in its public statements, the MAC “has not been frank with the public, the media, and the Canada Revenue Agency about its activities and how it carries them out.” undertakes”.