Posted March 23, 2021, updated May 16, 2022
For many Canadian charities, it's hard to raise money but not for Charitable Impact Foundation, a Vancouver charity known as CHIMP.
Towards the end of April, CHIMP reported that it had hit a big milestone: one billion dollars in donations. Within two weeks of that, CHIMP was up by another $100 million. Its running total now sits at $1.1 billion.
To put CHIMP's size and spectacular growth into perspective, it helps to compare with Vancouver Foundation which has been the biggest charity in the city for 75 years. In terms of tax-receipted donations, CHIMP, a relatively new charity, reports almost five times as much as Vancouver Foundation.
(NOTE: Vancouver Foundation is not affiliated with CHIMP. I mention it simply as a point of comparison).
CHIMP is a federally registered charity set up by Blake Bromley, a retired Vancouver lawyer who specializes in charity and tax planning. CHIMP is now run by Bromley's sons, John and Clif.
Blake Bromley claims to have started 650 charities that handled $2 billion worth of giving. That's a lot of money, and a lot of potential tax relief.
Over the past four years, I have identified 200 charities that were registered by Bromley and/or his employees. Since nearly all 200 charities are run out of the same office, that of Bromley's former company, and most of their directors are his former employees, I call them "the Bromley Charities."
Two flagship projects of the Bromley Charities were Quest University Canada in Squamish and Fortius Sport & Health Centre in Burnaby, B.C (since re-named Christine Sinclair Community Centre).
The Bromley Charities that started the university and the sports centre reported more than half a billion dollars in tax-receipted donations and gifts ($425 million & $106 million, respectively). With that level of support, both should have been in good financial shape but that was not the case. In 2020, the university was forced into foreclosure by one of the Bromley Charities, Vanchorverve Foundation. The sports centre also closed, citing financial difficulties, and was sold to the City of Burnaby.
As a result of its sale, Quest University Canada lost ownership of all its land and buildings and is now reduced to leasing its campus from the new owner.
The sale of the university and the sports centre resulted in huge payments to The Bromley Charities for $26.6 million and $25.6 million, respectively. Thus, the Bromley Charities appear to have benefited substantially from the demise of their own projects. That's charity?
Just a few years ago, CHIMP gave a gift of $74.7 million to Fortius Foundation, the charity that built and owned the sport centre before it was sold. If that $74 million was of true economic value, there's no way that the sports centre should have needed a $25.6 million dollar bail-out from Burnaby taxpayers.
In my opinion, what appears to have happened is that both the university and the sports centre were financed primarily by "gifts" that were actually loans. The loans were kicked down the road, re-financed multiple times while the Bromley charities collected millions of dollars of interest on the loans. When the university and the sports centre were sold, the Bromley charities got their money back, not far off from what The Globe & Mail reported nearly four years ago.
The question is, why is the CRA allowing this to go on?
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 from Quest alone exceed $100 million. In addition to that, $54 million has been paid to Chimp Technology Inc., a private company run by Blake Bromley and John Bromley.
As the grand visions of a unique, international university and a world class sport centre now lie in ruins, its long overdue that CRA investigates the monkey business at CHIMP and the Bromley charities as a whole.
Important questions need answering:
- What about the $1.1 BILLION in donations that CHIMP reports? Was that tax-receipted properly, both the cash and the non-cash donations?
- What about CHIMP's gift of $74.7 million for the sports centre? Was that a true gift? Or was that a sham?
- What about the $54 million paid to Chimp Technology Inc.? Is that legit or does any of that constitute undue benefits?
- Does land held by The Bromley Charities (eg. Parcel A and Lot 12) rightfully belong to Quest University Canada?
Perhaps the most important question of all is this: Did the CRA's lax enforcement and long-delayed audits of The Bromley Charities contribute to the downfall of the university and the sports centre? Why has CRA allowed The Bromley Charities to carry on as they have for so long?
A year ago, I began to write to CRA to request an audit of CHIMP and an investigation into the Bromley Charities as a whole. Here are my letters to CRA:
- March 22, 2021
- March 26, 2021
- May 16, 2022 for the entire attachment to this letter, click here (136 pages)
Below, here are the Appendices (940 pages) to my letters to the CRA from 2021:
- The Bromley Charities, Directors, Assets, Revenue, Expenditures, Etc.
- $1 BILLION Tax-Receipted Donations (2000-2020)
- Gifts From The Bromley Charities: $265 Million (2015-2019)
- Gifts to CHIMP $173 Million (2015-2019)
- BHP Billiton Diamonds LLC Mortgage
- Estimated Gross Benefits to The Bromley Charities
- Letter from CJW Forensics & Affidavit from Vivian Krause RE: Quest
- CHIMP Gift to Fortius for $74,711,535 & Imladris Gift to CHIMP $29,260,000 (2018)
- Fortius Foundation Loans to Related Parties & Bad Debt
- Global Charity Fund Funding Agreement
- CHIMP Gifts for $19 Or Less
- Balance Sheets & Mortgages
- Payment to Chimp Tech Inc $40 Million (2014-2020)
- CRA Letters of Revocation
- CRA Data Entry Errors
- CHIMP 2020 Tax Return & Financial Statements
- Quest University Canada's Mortgage: CHIMP & Vanchorverve
- Angel Philanthropy Foundation
- Trust Me Foundation - Tax-Receipted Donations & Fees Paid
- BeCause Foundation
- Viva Voce Charitable Foundation - CHIMP $35 MILLION for Life Insurance
More info: