Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to the hon. member, his comments are nonsensical, incorrect, and incoherent.
To begin with, we do not know who is audited. The only way anyone knows who is audited is if that person or group that is audited chooses to tell. We have no idea who else is being audited in this country, because there is no way to track that. That is private information, kept within CRA.
As I mentioned previously, audits are an important element in CRA's balanced approach to compliance. When CRA identifies non-compliance, it can use a series of progressive compliance measures ranging from education letters and compliance agreements for less serious cases to tougher measures like financial penalties, suspension, or even revocation for the most egregious cases. However, the truth is that the overwhelming majority of charities selected for audit are able to correct identified non-compliance concerns and continue their charitable programs. The CRA's approach is clearly working.
To close, in case the member opposite missed what I said earlier, in a recent message to all CRA employees, the commissioner and 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 audit activities, it is not subject to political direction.
There are 86,000 charities in this country and $14 billion in charitable money out there. The hon. member thinks that there should be no audit of any of that. That is not responsible.