The Canada Revenue Agency’s counter-terrorism team says it has uncovered “disturbing” 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 funding in recent years .
Posted at 5:00 am.
“The involvement of directors/employees in an apparent network supporting Hamas is concerning,” Julianne Myska, an IRS employee responsible for auditing MAC finances, said in a December 2022 affidavit filed with the Supreme Court Ontario Court of Justice was filed.
Hamas has been listed as a banned terrorist group in Canada since 2002. Anyone who contributes directly or indirectly to their activities risks a prison sentence of ten years.
More generally: “The preliminary results of the audit seem to indicate this [la MAC] is associated with individuals or groups associated with extremism, violence and/or terrorism,” the agency specifies in a letter written in 2021 and filed with the court.
The MAC, which manages about ten facilities in Quebec and more than fifty in Canada, strenuously denies any connection to terrorism or extremism. She claims that “the review was rife with systemic bias and Islamophobia from the start” (see other text). It claims to promote a “moderate, balanced and constructive” Islam.
The tax authorities don’t seem convinced.
In 2015, the Revenue Agency’s anti-terrorism law enforcement team launched an audit of the association: officials visited the MAC’s premises 30 times, conducted 27 interviews, analyzed 1 million transaction completions 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 said it violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The lawsuit has so far failed, but has given La Presse exceptional access to thousands of pages of evidence filed by the Revenue Agency at the Toronto courthouse to justify its actions. Based on this evidence, tax authorities are threatening to revoke MAC’s nonprofit status, which allows it to issue tax certificates to its donors. To date, the evidence has not been tested in court. The MAC has a deadline to appeal the exam results. She believes that the authorities’ final verdict, which is not yet public, will show that she has managed to refute all the allegations.
The standoff comes as the organization receives millions of dollars in public money each year, particularly from the federal government, as part of programs to combat hate crimes, renovate certain facilities and organize sporting, educational or cultural events.
The Ontario government also gave the MAC $225,000 last year to produce video clips against Islamophobia. In one of the capsules, the “Quebec Secularism Act” was cited as an example of anti-Islam legislation. The affair had angered the Quebec government.
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS
The tax authorities also accuse the MAC of supporting for years a Canadian charity whose status was revoked because it served as a financing entity for Hamas.
From Hamas front groups
Audit documents show that officials were alarmed when they discovered that a dozen leaders who held key positions at the MAC were former members or collaborators of Hamas front groups that had shut down under pressure from authorities.
According to the evidence submitted, the MAC was once located at the same address as the Middle East Information Center, a now-defunct group that was viewed by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) as 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 the administrators of a MAC school in Montreal once included 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 because of his involvement in a series of crimes in Tunisia, including bombings, arson, throwing acid against citizens and political assassination plots.
The tax authorities also accuse the MAC of supporting for years a Canadian charity whose status was revoked because it served as a financing entity for Hamas.
This organization, called International Relief for the Afflicted and Needy (IRFAN), received about $300,000 directly from MAC before being sanctioned by authorities. In 2011, she lost her charitable privileges because an audit revealed she had transferred $14.6 million to Hamas. Despite everything, MAC reportedly continued to help IRFAN raise funds in the years that followed. The relationship with IRFAN continued “long after their status was revoked, particularly because they… [soutenu] the registered terrorist organization Hamas,” the Revenue Agency says.
For example, the MAC allegedly used its mailing lists to help IRFAN raise funds, in addition to welcoming it to its events to raise money.
The court documents also show that a former leader of IRFAN had been president of the MAC for several years. “The involvement of administrators/employees [de la MAC] in an apparent network supporting Hamas […] “could indicate the reason why certain activities, such as continued support of IRFAN-Canada, were carried out by the organization,” the officials say.
Links between the two groups were documented until 2014. In March of this year, an RCMP officer spying on an IRFAN fundraiser observed the man entering a MAC branch in Montreal, only to emerge with a large envelope in his hand, believed to be filled with money, according to an affidavit filed in court. An undercover agent also entered IRFAN headquarters and saw a MAC identification plaque. The following month, Ottawa added IRFAN to the list of banned terrorist organizations, marking 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 founded in Egypt in 1928 to promote the formation of sharia-based governments in the Arab world. Hamas also claimed to be part of this movement until 2017. Today, the MAC simply states on its website that it follows the thinking of Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, to whom it credits “the articulation of ‘Islamism.'” The group itself no longer mentions them.
In discussions with the Revenue Agency, MAC leaders explained that they belonged only to a school of thought, not a political group as such. But reading the group’s internal correspondence convinced tax authorities otherwise.
“The Canada Revenue Agency believes the organization’s statements are contradictory and not representative of what is recorded in its own books and records,” the court documents say. According to tax authorities, MAC works for the benefit of the Muslim Brotherhood, a political movement that is not a charity under the law.
Officials note that in addition to his duties in Canada, a MAC leader served as a personal adviser to Mohamed Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood leader who was elected president of Egypt in 2012 and ousted by the army in 2013. The agency says he has the MAC’s president consulted to obtain his opinion on specific appointments.
Another international connection that worries officials: MAC received $2.5 million from a Qatari charity that is part of the Union of Good, an alliance allegedly “founded by the Hamas leadership” to seek funds to the terrorist organization,” it says to the US government. Other sources of funding in the Persian Gulf also raised eyebrows among officials.
“The Canada Revenue Agency has found no evidence that the organization is directly influenced by its foreign donors, but the fact that some of these donors are known to promote extremist ideologies or have ties to terrorist groups raises concerns Concern,” court documents state.
Regarding comments
The tax authorities also examined the message from MAC leaders.
“Some public statements from people involved in MAC […] appeared to glorify or promote violence, including murder, or undermine the rights of women,” according to evidence submitted to the court.
Officials cite a speech at a rally about forcing women to offer their husbands sex on demand or they would be damned. Another statement spoke of “killing Zionists.” The IRS also found that a MAC leader in Ontario retweeted Hamas posts 34 times on his Twitter account.
Officials are also revisiting a 2011 controversy when the MAC invited a British speaker to Montreal who advocated stoning gays. They point out that before his speech, the MAC had prepared a statement with a PR firm clarifying that it did not conduct background checks on its speakers.
In general, officials argue that internal documentation reviewed suggests that the MAC has not been open to the public, the media and the Canada Revenue Agency in its public statements about its activities and the manner in which it conducts them “.