Some of those rural charities are definitely private Christian schools. Although I believe the larger numbers were made up of churches themselves and indigenous services.
Thanks for the positive news on the apparent lack of fraud re govt. backed charities. Sadly however I believe that is definitely not the case re a significant percentage of the rest of the 82000. An indication of the possibilities for rampant fraud could be gleaned from an ATIP request for the number of charities delisted and sanctioned each year [never mind those criminally convicted, if any] also the number of people actually doing in depth audits of those 82000.
The possibilities can be gleaned from the 'regulations for charities' which allow a percentage of money raised to be spent on 'fund raising' and the fact that a RED FLAG is only raised when said percentage approaches 75/80%. If a conservative estimate of 10% are bent that's a forest of FLAGS .
My favourite example is from quite a few years back involving a woman running a complete scam called The Pediatric Aids Foundation out of her home in I believe a suburb in Burlington Ont. [ NOT the legit one by that name in the Excited States I hasten to add] She raised many 100s of THOUSANDS and when she finally got audited they found that the amount spent on actual charitable works came to 5k. I actually got a fund raising phone call from them sometime after I read about it and I have no reason to believe things have gotten any better since but I would be suitably impressed if I am proved wrong.
I have the complete set of revoked charities (there have been around 55,000 in total over all the years and 1,953 in 2025 alone). I'm just looking through that dataset for the first time right now. I can see that most (nearly all) of the revocations were split more or less evenly between "voluntary revocation" and "failure to file". Only around 750 out of those 55,000 were "with cause".
I expect that there are many fraudulent cases that haven't be caught - and many probably never will. But I guess every angle we manage to rule out should make it easier to focus on more productive investigations.
How does voting once every few years for mindless tropes like "Just society" or "Elbows up" give government any indication of where Canadians want coercively borrowed money on their behalf to be spent on charities that each and every Canadian is capable of deciding for themselves. Is there a correct or well managed way of doing wrong and or evil?
Thank you, David. While fraudulent charities are naturally a concern (given the ongoing investigations in the US), how do or can we verify that funds purportedly sent to, say, Somalia, actually reach intended recipients (and aren't pocketed by various and sundry Canadian "officials" somewhere along the way [kick-backs being a potential part of the grift])?
But I suspect that the only way to get any sense of how much charitable funding is wasted or misdirected before it does any good is through boots on the ground investigations. And those are going to be resisted by both corrupt government officials and by charity officials with vested interests in the status quo.
I don't have a lot of confidence that my remote data resources are able to by all that useful there.
Thanks for this David - a bit of comforting news on a Sunday morning!
Seems a great deal of these align with private Christian educational systems?
Some of those rural charities are definitely private Christian schools. Although I believe the larger numbers were made up of churches themselves and indigenous services.
Fascinating David. The use of AI tools to detect fraud and abuse of public funds is one of the net positives of the AI revolution.
Thanks for the positive news on the apparent lack of fraud re govt. backed charities. Sadly however I believe that is definitely not the case re a significant percentage of the rest of the 82000. An indication of the possibilities for rampant fraud could be gleaned from an ATIP request for the number of charities delisted and sanctioned each year [never mind those criminally convicted, if any] also the number of people actually doing in depth audits of those 82000.
The possibilities can be gleaned from the 'regulations for charities' which allow a percentage of money raised to be spent on 'fund raising' and the fact that a RED FLAG is only raised when said percentage approaches 75/80%. If a conservative estimate of 10% are bent that's a forest of FLAGS .
My favourite example is from quite a few years back involving a woman running a complete scam called The Pediatric Aids Foundation out of her home in I believe a suburb in Burlington Ont. [ NOT the legit one by that name in the Excited States I hasten to add] She raised many 100s of THOUSANDS and when she finally got audited they found that the amount spent on actual charitable works came to 5k. I actually got a fund raising phone call from them sometime after I read about it and I have no reason to believe things have gotten any better since but I would be suitably impressed if I am proved wrong.
I have the complete set of revoked charities (there have been around 55,000 in total over all the years and 1,953 in 2025 alone). I'm just looking through that dataset for the first time right now. I can see that most (nearly all) of the revocations were split more or less evenly between "voluntary revocation" and "failure to file". Only around 750 out of those 55,000 were "with cause".
I expect that there are many fraudulent cases that haven't be caught - and many probably never will. But I guess every angle we manage to rule out should make it easier to focus on more productive investigations.
How does voting once every few years for mindless tropes like "Just society" or "Elbows up" give government any indication of where Canadians want coercively borrowed money on their behalf to be spent on charities that each and every Canadian is capable of deciding for themselves. Is there a correct or well managed way of doing wrong and or evil?
Thank you, David. While fraudulent charities are naturally a concern (given the ongoing investigations in the US), how do or can we verify that funds purportedly sent to, say, Somalia, actually reach intended recipients (and aren't pocketed by various and sundry Canadian "officials" somewhere along the way [kick-backs being a potential part of the grift])?
That's a much bigger problem. I've written about how Global Affairs Canada priorities are often completely disconnected from the real street-level problems in beneficiary countries (https://www.theaudit.ca/p/billions-spent-results-unknown-inside). And I've also written about how at least some funding from (through) Canadian charities has definitely ended up financing designated terror organizations (https://www.theaudit.ca/p/tracking-federal-funding-through).
But I suspect that the only way to get any sense of how much charitable funding is wasted or misdirected before it does any good is through boots on the ground investigations. And those are going to be resisted by both corrupt government officials and by charity officials with vested interests in the status quo.
I don't have a lot of confidence that my remote data resources are able to by all that useful there.
Thanks kindly for the links, as well as your assessment. Your efforts are - as always - much appreciated.
Great stuff! And a bit optimistic for a change.