Information & Ethics committee  Yes. That's the problem. That's the loophole. That's why, when I spoke with the investigators at Elections Canada, they said, “Look, our hands are tied. In our eyes, that money is Canadian because it came through a Canadian charity.”

Information & Ethics committee  Yes.

Information & Ethics committee  Sure. I think it's very simple. The Income Tax Act specifies very clearly that charities are to operate for purposes that are exclusively charitable—not mostly charitable or a little bit charitable or good, but charitable—as defined by law. So all that is required, as I understan

Information & Ethics committee  I can only speak to the particular area that I am familiar with, which is the use of funds via charities. When you look at the reporting in the 2015 federal election, the top advertisers, the ones that were all funded as part of the tar sands campaign, if you grouped them toget

Information & Ethics committee  I have no knowledge of how the CRA conducted any of its audits. The only thing I can tell you is that the charity at the centre of the fuss was Tides Canada. In their financial statements for 2016-17 they state that yes, the foundation was audited, but only for 2008-09. If true,

Information & Ethics committee  Well, it would be for any of the years wherein evidence was brought to the attention of the CRA about violations of the Income Tax Act. Just to sum up, the CRA did 42 audits. The recommendations were to shut down at least five—some say seven—of those charities. Why hasn't that h

Information & Ethics committee  Is that question for me? If I understood correctly, you want to know if all social media have to be eliminated.

Information & Ethics committee  That does not seem feasible to me. Furthermore, since there are so many ways of using social media effectively, I do not think banning their use makes any sense. The issue is not eliminating them, but rather looking at how they are used. I think regulations are needed. I can only

Information & Ethics committee  It is the funding that has to be controlled, not what people say. Freedom of speech is very important, especially during an election. What we need to eliminate is outside funding so the outcome of the election is decided by Canadians alone.

Information & Ethics committee  Sure, I'd be glad to. Let's start with Tides Canada. The American Tides Foundation, based in San Francisco, incorporated in British Columbia in the late 1990s and then changed its name to become the Tides Canada foundation. The American Tides Foundation, I think it would be fair

Information & Ethics committee  These are big-picture numbers. I've traced more than $600 million that has come into Canada, mostly for large-scale conservation initiatives. Of that, at least $90 million was earmarked specifically for efforts to restrict oil and gas. That's not including 2017 and 2018. Tides Ca

Information & Ethics committee  I've never used the words “mudslinging” or “dirty work”, but I would say that groups like Leadnow and the Dogwood initiative influence elections primarily in two ways. One is by what you might call framing the narrative, establishing the issues on which the election is fought. Th

Information & Ethics committee  It's a combination. They refer to the synergy between offline and online, and creating what they call offline events like protests at MPs' offices, marches, etc., and then photographs of those are taken and used online. Sometimes those photos are done in such a way that it looks

Information & Ethics committee  Registered charities—this is what the CRA audited.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes.