Things that make you say "Hmmmmmmmm ...". In a recent piece by indescribably stupid Rebel News journo and creepy Justin Trudeau stalker Drea Humphrey, we read the following:
Notice anything interesting? Why, yes ... yes, you do ... there is absolutely no mention of the previously relentless assurances of charitable tax receipts. None. And if you follow that "here" link to make sure you are not misreading, well, Ezra wants to be absolutely clear that you are not misreading:
Is it just me, or has Ezra quietly shitcanned that whole "We can give you a charitable tax receipt" strangeness? How ... odd.
WEIRDER AND WEIRDER ... apparently, there is still a companion web page that promises charitable tax receipts, which inspires the obvious question -- why would Humphrey not link to that page? As in, if you have two ways to accept donations, and one entitles donors to a charitable tax receipt while the other does not, why in the name of Sheila Gunn Reid's John Deere-powered combination vibrator/hand-held sander would you direct people to the latter? Why would you exclusively send potential donors to the donations page that doesn't give them the option of a tax receipt?
But wait ... it gets weirder, as on the first page above where tax receipts are assured, one reads the bizarre offer:
So many questions, so little accountability.
Oh, Canada Revenue Agency, where art thou?
P.S. We are so not done with The Democracy Fund, as they have finally poked their noses out of their burrows, and what they're up to ain't pretty. Stay tuned.
AN EXCELLENT QUESTION: Early-morning commenter asks precisely the right question:
What happens when CRA finally catches up with this scam and disqualifies TDF from issuing tax receipts? What happens to all those people who dumped in a pile of money assuming they would be getting a tax deduction, only to find out that's not happening?
If I had done that, I'd be pretty pissed off and I'd be insisting that someone owed me the shortfall. So who would be on the hook for that misrepresentation?
A perfectly reasonable question, as Ezra himself pimps out the value of that tax receipt thusly:
So if I had donated $1,000 with the expectation that I would be getting $400 back come tax time, and I'm later told, sorry, not happening, I'd be pretty annoyed, and I'd be insisting that someone better make up the $400 shortfall. And at that point, one suspects there would be a great deal of finger-pointing between Rebel News and The Democracy Fund. And it wouldn't be pretty.
TO SUM UP ... this single screenshot from a Rebel News web page encapsulates perfectly the weirdness of this campaign's donation logistics:
Note that, in that last sentence, Rebel offers donors the choice of donating so that they are eligible for a tax receipt, versus donating so that they are not. I have never seen anything like this -- a campaign that offers both options of donation -- and it's not clear why any sane human being would opt for not being eligible.
If anyone has ever seen this type of strangeness elsewhere, well, the comments section is open.
9 comments:
What happens when CRA finally catches up with this scam and disqualifies TDF from issuing tax receipts? What happens to all those people who dumped in a pile of money assuming they would be getting a tax deduction, only to find out that's not happening?
If I had done that, I'd be pretty pissed off and I'd be insisting that someone owed me the shortfall. So who would be on the hook for that misrepresentation?
Pretty clearly it's a legal escape hatch. "Hey, we don't offer charitable receipts cuz duh, we're for profit. So send us money if you love us and hate Muslims and queers and commies and wogs Trudeau as much as we do. Bur for my old friends in the petroleum and tobacco industries with an annual goodwill budget for charitably donations - let me call in a few old debts..." Big donors would probably not want a donation to "the Rebel" on file, but a donation to "The Democracy Fund" - who can argue with that? And that the Democracy Fund does with the money is, of course, their business.
Except that what The Democracy Fund does with all that money is most emphatically NOT just their business. As a CRA-approved "charity," they must account for all of that dosh, and must also prove its use falls within their registered mandate. One suspects the game-playing has just begun, but that's just a guess.
I don't see the problem here. All the charities I've seen always give you the choice of asking for a tax deduction, or not if you don't want one. You're pretty desperate trying to make an issue of this.
I ... but ... never mind, life is too short to try to explain stuff to truly stupid people.
More Rebel ridiculousness: https://twitter.com/RebelNewsOnline/status/1416533586132586505
It's like Ezra knows his donors are stupid enough to not understand that he's breaking campaign finance laws with these books. This isn't a matter of "censorship."
I've written on that extensively at this very blog and you are entirely correct -- no one said Ezra couldn't publish his crappy books, they simply said that if those books were published *explicitly* to coincide with an election (which Ezra openly admitted to), then he had to register as a third-party advertiser.
The snowflakish martyrdom of that guy is depressing.
Vintage Ezra. Remember how he urged his readership at Western Standard to go out and buy four copies of the Mohamed cartoons a show of support IN ADDITION to their subscriptions, and to harangue your Muslim newsvendors if they weren't displaying it with adequate prominence? Funny how Ezra never sacrifices very much for the press freedom he earns his living from...
Considering the way the CRA allowed itself to be weaponized by harper, this dodgy behaviour by Ezra and the Democracy Funge is pretty interesting.
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