Integrity is on the minds of many voters as we head to the polls for Canada’s 44th election. This is partly because three times, the Ethics Commissioner has found that Justin Trudeau broke the rules, and because the early media coverage of Jody Wilson-Raybould’s new book, released this week, has stoked our disgust with bad behaviour.
Both the Liberals and the Conservatives have recently dropped candidates due to incidents that were missed in their initial vetting. The Liberals lost Raj Saini over allegations of sexual harassment and the Conservatives turfed Lisa Robinson for a 2017 tweet that said, "Muslims go home."
In the spirit of transparency promised by the Liberals, voters deserve the full story about one of their candidates in Vancouver, Josh Vander Vies, and CHIMP, a registered charity engaged in complex charitable giving arrangements that are the focus of an RCMP file.
Last week, Justin Trudeau tweeted a shout-out to Vander Vies. “Can’t wait to welcome you to Ottawa, Josh!” Katie Telford, Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister, also chimed in. Evidently, Vander Vies has the Liberal’s endorsement at the highest level.
As Josh puts it, he was born without arms, legs or limits. To his credit, he became a Paralympic athlete, winning bronze in boccia. Vander Vies is also a lawyer, he’s in-house legal counsel to CHIMP. Josh has been with CHIMP since 2012 when it set up a fund for his boccia training and travel.
Vander Vies’ job at CHIMP is relevant to his pursuit of public office because CHIMP’s finances are under significant scrutiny.
In 2018, The Globe and Mail published an in-depth investigation which found that wealthy donors get big tax breaks – and their donations back.
For 2020, the Independent Auditor's Report on CHIMP, done by Deloitte, says that the auditors were unable to obtain sufficient audit appropriate evidence to support the carrying value of $193 million in unlisted securities. Why couldn’t Deloitte vouch for $193 million, just last year? Vander Vies and John Bromley, CHIMP's CEO have been asked to explain. So far, no reply.
The fact that Vander Vies is a candidate casts doubt on whether a re-elected Liberal government would take action to address the monkey business that has been going on at CHIMP.
CHIMP was registered as a charity by Blake Bromley, a Vancouver lawyer specialized in charity and tax planning. CHIMP is run by Bromley's sons, John and Clif.
Bromley claims to have registered 650 charities that processed $2 billion in tax-receipted donations. Some of these charities caught my eye because of their unusual names such as Trust Me Foundation and Maple Syrup Mafia Foundation. The latter purports to support missionary work but it has never given a nickel to any organization, its tax returns show.
For five years, I have obtained the tax returns and financial statements from CRA, upon request, and have followed the finances of CHIMP plus 200 charities that use the same address as CHIMP and are directed primarily by Bromley’s employees (“The Bromley Charities”). Except for CHIMP, most have no staff and no public presence, not even a website. To me, these charities seem like units in a large operation, multiple pockets in the same pair of pants.
Christopher Richardson, the Official Agent for Josh Vander Vies was also a director of CHIMP for nine years (2009-2018) has been a director of 40 of The Bromley Charities.
Since it began in 2011, CHIMP's growth has been astonishing. Tax-receipted donations have soared from less than $150,000 to nearly $150 million (2011 to 2020). Within the charitable sector, this rate of growth is highly unusual. To put CHIMP’s growth 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.[i]
What is also unusual is that more than 80 percent of the donations that were tax-receipted by CHIMP last here were non-cash, the same type of donation that CHIMP’s Independent Auditor was unable to vouch for.
In 2019, CHIMP added "thousands more donors" and funded 3,600 charities, according to its annual report, signed by Josh Vander Vies.
Indeed, CHIMP operates nationwide but its charitable impact is questionable because thousands of CHIMP’s gifts are meaninglessly small. For example, the Missing Children's Society and the Ottawa Rape Crisis Centre were both funded via CHIMP but got less than $5 each. More than 2,000 charities across Canada got $19 or less: 624 charities in Ontario, 426 in Quebec, 550 in British Columbia and 400 charities in other provinces and territories.
The thousands of very tiny gifts create a façade of nationwide benevolence but the reality is that by dollar value, the majority of CHIMP’s “giving” goes to The Bromley Charities and the vast majority of their giving goes back to CHIMP. By my analysis, between 2015 and 2020, The Bromley Charities gave "gifts" for a total of $265 million, but less than $2 million went outside the Bromley network. Fully $178 million went to CHIMP.
For a gift to be a true gift, there needs to be an intention on behalf of a donor to benefit the recipient, with a corresponding impoverishment to the donor. Furthermore, there must be a true transfer of property without expectation of something in return. In the case of the many of the gifts between The Bromley Charities and CHIMP, I question how these criteria are met. Many of the “gifts” between The Bromley Charities are promissory notes, loans, mortgages and software license agreements that are transferred from one charity to the next.
For example, a software license agreement for $1,845,000 was gifted between CHIMP and four of The Bromley Charities, passed from one to the next and then entirely written off. In addition to being CHIMP’s lawyer, Josh Vander Vies was also a director of one of these charities, Real Champions Foundation
One of the largest gifts made by CHIMP was $74.7 million gifted to Fortius Foundation, one of The Bromley Charities. Years ago, Fortius Foundation built a sports centre in Burnaby, B.C. and owned it until the centre was sold for $26.6 million to the City of Burnaby, ostensibly due to financial troubles that began long before COVID.
The assessed value of the buildings that comprise the sports centre is $15.7 million so it seems odd that despite CHIMP’s huge gift just two years ago, the sports centre needed a substantial bail-out from Burnaby taxpayers.
Corporate records for CHIMP, signed by Josh Vander Vies, show that last year, CHIMP’s entire board resigned and was replaced.
Concerned that there might be some monkey business going on at CHIMP, I provided information to the Economic Crime Unit at the Burnaby RCMP, in January. They opened a file. Last week, I was told that the RCMP has completed a report. Whether any wrongdoing was found, and whether a full investigation will be commenced, I haven’t been told. RCMP should act on their report, especially now that someone from CHIMP seeks to be a Member of Parliament.
Overall, I see how The Bromley Charities benefit each other and how CHIMP benefits the CEO's private company, as I'll explain ahead, but I do not see that The Bromley Charities operate for purposes that are exclusively charitable - which is what the law requires.
Tax planning is legitimate. The right of taxpayers to minimize their tax payable is enshrined in The Income Tax Act but it has too many loopholes and grey zones that allow charities to issue tax receipts that far exceed the true value of a gift, especially for non-cash gifts of unlisted securities. There used to be an unwritten rule that diddling charities was off-limits. Those days are gone.
As our country wobbles towards economic recovery, we can’t continue to allow tax shenanigans made possible by lax laws and scant oversight.
Since Justin Trudeau became Prime Minister, the charity audits completed by the CRA have fallen from 845 to 279 per year between 2014 and 2019, CRA says.
Mark Blumberg, a Toronto lawyer specialized in charity, has made recommendations to improve CRA oversight and protect the public trust in charities. The Blumberg Recommendations were part of the 2021 budget process but were not implemented.
Blumberg recommended specific amendments to Section 241 of the Income Tax Act:
1) Increase minimum amount a charity is required to spend each year,
2) Allow CRA to disclose serious non-compliance, and
3) Create a unit within the RCMP, or other police force, to review complicated, abusive charity schemes that provide inappropriate donation receipts or undue benefits.
Other recommendations were also made.
The next federal government should put The Blumberg Recommendations into law.
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