Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome to our witnesses. There are a number of areas that I'm sure all my colleagues will have questions on, but there are a couple of areas that I'd like to just drill a little deeper into with your expertise and your help if you could.
For instance, I'd like to clear the air on something that has been brought up by the opposition on a regular basis. In a recent message to all CRA employees, the commissioner, and the deputy commissioner, said:
To be clear, the process for identifying which charities will be audited for any reason is handled by the Charities Directorate alone and, like all of our audit activities, is not subject to political direction.
Because we've heard two sides and two points of view on this we'll ask the expert. Is that quote accurate and can you confirm if the process for identifying which charities will be audited for any reason is subject to any political direction, or is it handled exclusively by CRA's charities directorate?