IRS targets Tea Partiers and Patriots = Scandal
CRA targets climate science ≠ Scandal
In Canada, we have
But that’s nothing, say National Post bigmouths Rex Murphy and Conrad Black. In the United States the Internal Revenue Service has been targeting conservative “Tea Party” and “Patriot” groups for extra attention, turning what is supposed to be a neutral bureaucracy into a political weapon.
In Canada, conservative “charities” like the Fraser Institute are free to use the tax-deductable “donations” they receive to engage in political activities like attacking public healthcare, unions and environmental regulations (helping their rich “donors” get richer) while maintaining charitable status.
Conservatives groups can continue to rely on public support for their rightwing agenda without any “political” interference from the Canada Revenue Agency.
It is another matter, however, for environmental groups, or as Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver likes to call them, “radical” groups that “threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda.”
In June 2012, the Harper government brought in Bill C-38, which injected $8 million into the CRA to investigate charities to make sure they are not spending more than 10% of their budget on political advocacy. But the “political advocacy” the government is concerned about is the “radical ideological agenda” of environmental groups.
What the Harper government thinks of as “political advocacy” might also be called “science.” Internationally renowned scientist David Suzuki resigned from the Suzuki Foundation for fear that his science-based criticism of Big Oil and the Canadian Conservative Party’s environmentally destructive tar sands project could subject the charitable organization to unwanted attention from the CRA.
In other words, there is a scandal in the US because their taxman has targeted certain conservatives, but there is no scandal in Canada because our taxman has targeted climate science “radicals” like David Suzuki. Good to know the CRA is being so responsible – making sure our taxpayer dollars are not being used to slow down our quick burn to Armageddon.
David Bernans is a Québec-based writer and translator. He is the author of Collateral Murder. Follow him on twitter @dbernans.
This bunch of folks at NoRobo.ca have a great plan to bring accountability and awareness to the robocall scandal. They want to inundate everyone who has the ability to do something about the robocall scandal, but isn’t, with robocalls. They plan to continue relentlessly until each one of these people come forward and publicly speak about what they are doing about it.
Please help them, I am. Watch this video, donate if you can, and please share it widely. They can’t do it without you. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf8t0rxo4to
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