Finance committee  We take all the complaints and all the information we receive about charities seriously. The act does not allow us to disclose our actions until a decision has been made about whether a revocation is justified under the circumstances. Once we make the decision to revoke the regi

Finance committee  I must admit that determining whether the donation is acceptable or not does not really fall under my responsibilities. I don't think I can help the honourable member with this particular question.

Finance committee  I'll take that question, Mr. Chairperson. We do have guidelines available that lay out our interpretation of what's allowable under the Income Tax Act. Registered charities are allowed to participate in political activities. By political activities, we mean when there is a ca

Finance committee  We do, actually, in the sense that we audit, as I mentioned, about 1% of charities a year. It's a little less than that. We do about 750 audits. In each and every one of those audits, one of the essential components is to look at whether the charity is engaging in political activ

Finance committee  The way the audit would unfold is that normally an auditor would attend a registered charity's offices and look at all of the books and records and ask a lot of questions, but the auditor wouldn't work by himself or herself. There is a team back at headquarters that is specialize

Finance committee  To rallies? No.

Finance committee  We would look at a wide range of possible sources of information, including the media.

Finance committee  We have information about the penalties. I have to apologize, because I don't know them off the top of my head, but there's usually a percentage associated. For example, if an undue private benefit were given to someone, then a percentage of that would be applied. For second infr

Finance committee  An annulment is available as a tool in two specific circumstances. If, in looking at a file, the charities directorate comes to the conclusion that it actually made an error in registering the organization in the first place, we'll essentially annul our decision. That's as oppose

Finance committee  It's when there's a change in the law that means that the charity, by no fault of its own, is now no longer compliant.

Finance committee  No, there is not.

Finance committee  There is none.

Finance committee  Mr. Chairperson, currently charities have to report on the various sources of their funding. They also have to report on what they do with all of their resources. In terms of disclosing the names of individual donors, if I understood the question correctly, certainly there would

Finance committee  There's only a brief description of the actual activities. The form is more geared toward, unfortunately, yes-or-no answers and some financial data. Currently we don't have a lot of narrative information about what the charities are undertaking.

Finance committee  It would be, and it would depend on whether they completed the short form of the financial information or the more in-depth schedule. Further information would be found in the financial statements, which unfortunately are not available on the website.