Rethink Campaigns

Request for CRA Investigation of CHIMP & Its Empire of 200 Vancouver Charities

For many charities, 2020 was tough. Hard to raise money. But not for Charitable Impact Foundation, commonly known as "CHIMP."

Last year, CHIMP, based in Vancouver, reported almost $150 million in tax-receipted donations. To put that into perspective, consider that CHIMP, a relatively new charity, raised five times as much as Vancouver Foundation which has been the biggest charity in the city for 75 years.

Before I go further, I hasten to emphasize that Vancouver Foundation is not affiliated with CHIMP. I mention it here simply as a point of comparison.

Now, back to CHIMP ...

Since it began, CHIMP has helped more than 110,000 people donate to 9,000 charities across Canada - or so it said until a few days ago. CHIMP has since retracted that claim, as shown below. So who is CHIMP and why is it suddenly changing its story?

CHIMP is a federally registered charity set up by Blake Bromley, a retired Vancouver lawyer, and a couple of his associates. CHIMP is now run by Bromley's sons, John and Clif.

Blake Bromley has started 650 charities that handled $2 BILLION worth of giving, he says. Over the past four years, I have identified 200 of these charities. Since nearly all of them are run out of the same office and by the same core group of people who are Bromley's employees and former employees, I refer to these as "The Bromley Charities." According to their tax returns, these 200 charities have reported more than $1 BILLION in tax-receipted donations. That's a lot of money - and a lot of tax relief. So what do these charities have to show for themselves? That's a fair question.

Two of the flagship projects of these charities were Quest University in Squamish and Fortius Sport & Health Centre in Burnaby, B.C. The Bromley Charities that started the university and the sports centre reported more than half a billion dollars in tax-receipted donations and gifts ($425M & $106M). With that level of support, both Quest and Fortius should be in good shape but that is not the case.

Last year, Quest was forced into creditor protection and sold to pay a debt to one of The Bromley Charities. As a result of the sale, the university lost ownership of all its land and buildings and is now reduced to leasing its campus from the new owner.

Fortius Sport & Health Centre also closed last year, citing financial difficulties, and was purchased by The City of Burnaby.

One of the important points to note here is that the sale of Quest and Fortius resulted in huge payments to The Bromley Charities for $25 million and $26 million, respectively.

Just a few years ago, CHIMP gave $74 million to Fortius Foundation, the charity that built and owned the sport centre before it was bought by The City of Burnaby. If that $74 million was real money, there's no way that the sports centre should've needed a $26 million dollar bail-out from Burnaby taxpayers.

Over the same years that Quest and Fortius sunk deep into debt, The Bromley Charities benefited substantially from land sales, the lease and sale of a student residence, royalty income and more. By my analysis, gross benefits to The Bromley Charities exceed $100 MILLION, including $40 MILLION paid to Chimp Technology Inc., a private company run by John Bromley.

As the grand visions of a unique, international university and a world class sport centre now lie in ruins, its time for CRA to investigate the monkey business at CHIMP and the Bromley empire of at least 200 charities. Important questions need answering:

What about the $775 million in donations that CHIMP reports? Was that tax-receipted properly?
What about CHIMP's gift of $74 million for the sports centre? Was that a true gift? Or was that a sham?
What about the $40 million paid to Chimp Technology Inc.? Is that legit or does any of that constitute undue benefits?
Do Bromley's charities own land (eg. Parcel A and Lot 12) or other assets that rightfully belong to Quest University Canada?

And perhaps the most important question of all: Did the CRA's lax enforcement and long-delayed audits of the Bromley charities contribute to the downfall of Fortius and Quest? And why has CRA let the Bromley charities carry on as they have for so long?

For the letter to CRA sent on March 22, 2021, requesting an audit of CHIMP and an investigation of The Bromley Charities as a whole, click here. For the follow-up letter sent March 26, 2021, click here.

Below, here are the Appendices (940 pages) to my letters to the CRA:

More info:

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06/16/2021

Deloitte "Unable to Obtain Sufficient Appropriate Audit Evidence..." $193,037,460

If you've been reading this blog, you'll know that I've been concerned for several years now about the monkey business at the CHIMP Foundation. Turns out, I'm not the only one. In CHIMP's financial statements for 2020, Deloitte issued a Basis for Qualified Opinion.

Deloitte was "unable to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence supporting the carrying amount of investments in certain unlisted securities with a total carrying value of $193,037,460 as of July 31, 2020."

I can't help but wonder if this is part of the reason why CHIIMP's entire board resigned and was replaced in late February/early March of 2020.

CHIMP does not provide its 2020 financials at its website so I obtained them from CRA.

To read the redacted statements that were provided to me by CRA, click here.

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06/15/2021

Gifts from Imladris Foundation: $39,930,000 (2010-2018)

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05/26/2021

House of Commons & Senate of Canada Vivian Krause Testimony (2010-2020)

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04/02/2021

We Charity: U.S. Tax Returns

Here are the U.S. tax returns for We Charity:

WeCharity 2002, We Charity 2003, We Charity 2004, We Charity 2005, We Charity 2006, We Charity 2007, We Charity 2008, We Charity 2009, We Charity 2011, We Charity 2012, We Charity 2013,
We Charity 2014, We Charity 2015, We Charity 2016, We Charity 2017, We Charity 2018, WE Charity 2019
For the pages showing grants for $118 million, click here.

Me to WE Foundation: ME to WE 2013, ME to WE 2014, Me to WE 2015, ME to WE 2016, ME to WE 2017, ME to WE 2018

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03/01/2021

Letters to Blake Bromley, John Bromley & Scott Cousens

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01/28/2021

To Mayor Mike Hurley & The Burnaby City Council RE: Fortius Sports Centre

January 29, 2021

Dear Mayor Hurley & Council,

As we know, just before Christmas, The City of Burnaby announced plans to buy Fortius Sport & Health Centre for $26.6 million. The sale is scheduled to close very soon, on Monday, February 1, 2021.

As I said in my initial letter, two weeks ago, I hope that the sports centre can re-open as soon as possible but I believe that the payment of $26.6 million to Fortius Foundation should be put on hold.

Based on what I'll explain ahead, it seems to me that in purchasing the sports centre, The City of Burnaby faces three issues: 1) The price, 2) Who gets the money, 3) The RCMP file.

Regarding the price, Mayor Hurley has told me that he thinks The City is getting a bargain. The centre is 140,000 square feet and would cost $1,000 per square foot to build, he says. ($1,000 - seems awfully high to me, but that's what the mayor said). At $1,000, that would put the replacement cost at about $140 million. Its easy to see why Council would keen to buy the sports centre for less than a quarter of that but there's more to this purchase than the price.

The current owner of the sports centre is Fortius Foundation, a registered charity.

Promising to help Canadian athletes raise their game, Fortius Foundation opened the sports centre in 2013. Since then, Fortius has hosted an impressive number of teams and events - even pre-season training for the Toronto Raptors.

At the end of December, Fortius Foundation shut down the sports centre, blaming COVID19. But the truth is that Fortius has been in trouble for years.

The $23 Million “Donation” from Scott Cousens

Fortius has long said that it began with a $23 million donation from Scott Cousens, a local mining executive. However, as The Globe and Mail reported with an in-depth investigation by Kathy Tomlinson, this narrative is contradicted by tax returns and financial statements obtained from the Canada Revenue Agency.

Tax returns show that gifts to Fortius from Scott Cousens’ private foundation total $130,000, not $23 million.

Despite a total of $106 million in tax-receipted donations and charitable gifts, Fortius Foundation was still $24 million in debt (as of 2019), and yet the assessed value of the buildings is only $15.7 million. The $106 million includes a "gift" of $74.7 million from Charitable Impact Foundation (“CHIMP”), just two years ago.

In addition to the $106 million in gifts, Fortius Foundation also undertook a total of $130 million in loans. Much of the $130 million appears to have been a refinancing of the original loans, which appear to have been refinanced several times.

As I mentioned in my initial letter, during December I asked Scott Cousens repeatedly about the funding of the sports centre via e-mail, phone and Twitter. I sent a detailed letter sent to him and to John Bromley, CEO of CHIMP. I received no reply so I reported this matter to The Economic Crime Unit of The Burnaby RCMP. They have opened a file (#2021-892).

Fortius Foundation

The second, more difficult issue is who should get the $26.6 million. The salient point here is that Fortius Foundation is not a commercial seller. It is a registered charity.

As I explained in my initial letter, on the basis of my extensive research it is clear to me that Fortius Foundation is part of a massive tax fraud scam involving hundreds of millions of dollars in tax-receipted donations and charitable gifts that are a SHAM. For examples of tax-receipted donations and gifts that I believe are a sham, click here.

The reason that I would characterize these gifts as a sham is because I believe that no real money changed hands. For a gift to be a true gift, there must be an intention on behalf of a donor to benefit the recipient, with a corresponding impoverishment to the donor. Furthermore, I believe that there was no true transfer of property since these gifts are between related parties and were not made without expectation of something in return. For these reasons, I believe that these gifts are sham transactions, paper shuffles conducted in a circuit of charities that operates like multiple pockets in the same pair of pants.

By law, registered charities are required to operate for purposes that are exclusively charitable. This means entirely, solely and purely charitable. This is the responsibility that charities bear because they can issue tax receipts for substantial tax relief.

The sole purpose of Fortius Foundation was the sports centre. Now that the centre is closed, the foundation should also close because its purpose no longer exists. This is why I believe that The City of Burnaby should not pay as much as $26.6 million to Fortius Foundation.

To see how Fortius got into trouble, we need to look back at how it began.

Tax records show that Fortius was created by a trio of registered charities. The first of the trio, New Dimensions Foundation, reported nearly $18 million in tax-receipted donations (2008 & 2009). That should have been enough to build the sports centre. But instead of using the $18 million for the centre's construction, New Dimensions gave a loan - not a gift - of $17.4 million to the second charity, Fortius Foundation. That loan was secured by a mortgage against the sports centre and was passed on to the third charity, Imladris Foundation.

An important point here is that these three charities are not autonomous. All three were created by Scott Cousens and Blake Bromley, a Vancouver lawyer. This trio must therefore be assessed as a whole. New Dimensions did nothing but receipt the $18 million, hand-off the Fortius loan to Imladris, and promptly shut down. Imladris Foundation is now run solely by Scott Cousens, his spouse and family. CHIMP, which gave Fortius Foundation the "gift" of $74.7 million, is run by Bromley's sons, John and Clif.

Another important point is the date of the loan from New Dimensions to Fortius Foundation. That date is June 1, 2008, before the 2009 financial crisis.

As I reviewed the financial statements for the Fortius charities, one of the surprising things I noticed is that between 2010 and 2018, Scott Cousens’ foundation charged roughly $1 million per year in interest on the loan to Fortius Foundation, a total of $9.6 million. The initial interest rate was 20 percent. That was reduced to 5 per cent pursuant to a CRA audit, tax returns say. The net result of the interest charges, in my view, is that the “donation of debt” was jacked up by $9.6 million.

In 2018, Scott Cousens’ foundation gave CHIMP Foundation a gift of $29 million which appears to be the transfer of the mortgage against the sports centre, and unpaid interest.

Financial statements show that the construction of the sports centre appears to have been paid for via a long series of loans starting in 2011 with $20 million from Romspen Investment Corporation, based in Ontario. That loan was increased to $26.4 million and followed by $35 million in additional loans from five charities run by Blake Bromley:

- Global Charity Fund: $4 million
- Foundation for Public Good: $12.2 million
- Homestead on the Hill Foundation: $4 million
- Almoner Foundation: $15 million
- Association for the Advancement of Scholarship: $600,000.

In 2018, Fortius Foundation appears to have used the $74.7 million that it received from CHIMP in order to consolidate its debt under a loan from Bank of Montreal. As far as I can tell, the $74.7 million wasn't a true gift of real money, it was a paper shuffle, a re-arrangement of loans.

Important Questions

The most recent publicly available financial statements, for the year 2019, say that Fortius Foundation has a mortgage for $16 million from an unidentified lender (the name is redacted in financial statements provided by the CRA) and a debt of $4 million to a director of the foundation.

Who is the unidentified lender and who is the director owed $4 million? Would they be repaid with public funds?

A list of further questions was included with my initial letter.

Conclusion

In light of the above, I respectfully suggest that The City of Burnaby finds out how much real money was put into building the sports centre - and by who - and I suggest that The City repay the outstanding loans for the cost of the centre's original construction – and not a cent more.

As for the land, the centre is located on 5.2 acres in Burnaby. It was valued at $3 million when the project began. Now, the assessed value is $12.4 million. There’s nothing to stop Fortius Foundation from giving the land to The City of Burnaby at the original cost. After all, giving is what charities are supposed to do.

I wish you the very best in your service of the people and the taxpayers of Burnaby.

I am available to answer any questions you may have.

Sincerely,

Vivian

Posted at 04:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fortius Foundation: $130 Million Loans (2008-2019)

Here are pages of financial statements and mortgage documents showing loans to Fortius Foundation for a combined total of more than $130 million. An important point to note is that these loans were not concurrent. Later loans were used to pay off earlier loans.

Loans from The Bromley Charities for a combined total of roughly $65 million:

Posted at 04:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fortius Sport & Health Centre, Burnaby: Financial Statements & Tax Returns (2007-2020)

These files were provided by the Canada Revenue Agency on November 25, 2020.

The financial statements and tax return for Fortius Foundation was provided March 25, 2021.

New Dimensions Foundation (2007-2013):

Imladris Foundation (Scott Cousens & Family) (2008-2019):

Fortius Foundation:

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Ten U.S. Foundations: $750 Million For Activism Targeting Canada (2000-2019)

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01/12/2021

Fortius Sport & Health Centre, Burnaby: Massive Tax Fraud Scam

Letters to Mayor Mike Hurley and the Council of the City of Burnaby:

January 15, 2021 (30 pages)
- Fortius Sport & Health Centre: Examples of Sham Donations & Gifts
January 22, 2021 (20 pages)
January 29, 2021 (2 pages)
To download all three letters in one file, click here.
To download the financial data tables that were prepared and presented to the Burnaby Mayor & Council as the basis of these letters, click here.

Appendices:

Additional Information:

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