Thank you very much for the invitation to join your meeting today.

My name is Vivian Krause. I am in Vancouver, and I am appearing here as an individual.

The reason I am here is that I've had two experiences since 2017 with Elections Canada investigations, and I think that those experiences can perhaps be useful in looking to see how they went and how they can be improved.

Since 2017, I should say that I have been involved with two investigations, which were Leadnow and WE Charity. In both cases, these were non-profit, youth-focused organizations, which are very different from an authoritarian state government.

In both cases, the organization at the heart of the investigation had openly acknowledged that it had been trying to influence election outcomes. In both cases, there was clear evidence of funding from outside Canada.

For example, in their book, WEconomy, the Kielburger brothers write that they had been approached by Allstate—that's the American insurance company—wanting to “buy election results”. That's on page 253 of their book. They go on to explain, “[I]t's not what you think. For the insurance [company], the cause [was] youth empowerment,” but the Kielburgers explain further that they had calculated that it cost $34 to “buy” a youth vote. Allstate gave WE Charity $34 million for their youth program, which I take was enough funding for one million youth votes.

I'm sure we all agree that we want to encourage youth voting. That's not the issue. The issue is the funding.

The second point I'd like to raise is that, with Leadnow, the reason this was a concern to me is that Leadnow was created by an American organization. After the 2015 election, its executive director wrote in its annual report that year that it had run a Canadian campaign that had moved the needle, contributing greatly to the ousting of the Conservative Harper government.

Even in these two cases, where there was an admission on the part of the organization being investigated that they had been trying to influence the election's outcome, Elections Canada found nothing wrong.

In the case of Leadnow, I was interviewed. It was a four-hour interview, if I remember correctly, and I remember at the end of it how frustrated the Elections Canada investigator was. He said, “People like you who are concerned need to get the Elections Act changed, because”—as he said—“we can only enforce it. We can't change it.”

I think there are three specific things that need to be tightened. One is the types of activities that are regulated, especially with a focus on online activity. Two, the time frame for reporting funds is way too short. Three, non-cash, in-kind contributions are really where the impact is being felt.

The second point I would like to make, and I'll be brief, is that, to make our elections more resistant to outside interference, I believe that it's at the CRA that we need to see change, and, in particular, at the charities directorate. The reason this is so important is that charities can, in essence, Canadianize funds, so that once funds have gone through a Canadian charity, in the eyes of Elections Canada those funds are Canadian.

As I see it, the charities directorate has been operating largely on an honour system. I say that because for the last 30 years, CRA has revoked only 584 charities. That's an average of 22 charities per year over the past 20 years. That's less than one-tenth of 1% of Canada's 86,000 charities, so it is a negligible number.

Since last summer, CRA has revoked or put into the process of revocation a total of 18 charities run by a single individual, a tax lawyer in Vancouver. These audits, I think, are important to take a look at, because they're revealing, not only about the charities but, even more importantly, about CRA oversight.

One of the important things to note is that these 18 audits took, on average, 10 years from the point of the transaction or the activity that CRA found to be offside and revocation. The range was from a minimum of seven years to 21 years. That's just far too long.

In one case the audit report was completed in 2012. It took another 11 years before the charity was shut down just last month, as of March 25.

I draw your attention in particular to the case of Howe Sound Samaritans' Foundation, a Canadian charity—