On Thursday October 16, CBC’s The Fifth Estate released “Funding the Occupation.” In the documentary, they travelled to the West Bank and spoke with several Palestinian families and communities who are the victims of Israeli war crimes. This included Nasser Nawaj’ah and his family from Khirbet Susiya, Khalil Hathaleen and the Umm al-Khair community, Heidar Abu Ghosh from Imwas, and Issa Amron from Hebron. They also spoke with a far-right, racist, Israeli group that defended its destruction of Palestinian homes and violence against Palestinians.

The thesis of the documentary: “We are financing war criminality through our charitable system” — Miles Howe.

A note, this is not about celebrating the CBC doing the bare minimum by reporting facts and highlighting Palestinian voices. CBC remains deeply complicit in Israel’s occupation, apartheid, and genocide (which it still fails to name); and it can and will be held accountable for its actions, not just over the last 2 years, but for decades before that. Rather, it is about using this momentum to hold other government institutions accountable. In this case, we continue to demand the Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA) take immediate action to stop tax-subsidized funds supporting illegal activities by revoking charitable status for organizations who facilitate war crimes.

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne states in the documentary: “We always make sure with the CRA…that anyone who wants to qualify as a registered charity, follows all the rules and principles that we have in the tax code, and as far as I know, these rules have been well established in Canadian law for a long time.”

This is both true and false. The CRA and the Government of Canada have clear principles and legislation that charities must follow. However, they fail to enforce their own policies, instead letting these registered charities funnel tax-subsidized dollars to illegal settlements and support for the Israeli military.

The CRA cannot claim ignorance. Between 2021 and 2025, Just Peace Advocates submitted dozens of complaints to the CRA focusing on more than 50 Canadian charities and qualified donees. Key submissions include the Ne’eman Foundation (now revoked), HESEG Foundation, Gerald Schwartz & Heather Reisman Foundation, Mizrachi Canada (6 times), United Israel Appeal of Canada (2 times), Canadian Zionists Cultural Association (3 times), and many more. Check out the bottom of this post for a full list. Some of these submissions were made alongside other organizations such as Independent Jewish Voices, Palestinian and Jewish Unity, Canadian Foreign Policy Institute, ICJP Canada, and others. These efforts also grew out of the Palestinian-led movement Defund Racism.

Through various campaigns, the CRA has also received tens of thousands of letters from Canadians demanding they take immediate and decisive action to end their complicity.

The point: The CRA is well aware of Canadian charities violating its own policies as well as international and domestic law.

The CRA violates its own policies by:

• Allowing charities to support foreign military (in contravention of the Public Benefit Test, CG-002 Section 4).
• Failing to ensure charities fulfill their duties under the Income Tax Act, specifically by failing to accurately report their revenue and expenses, at times, completely missing a tax filing, or failing to complete whole sections of their tax return.

The CRA violates international law by:

• Allowing upholding the charitable status of organizations who violate international laws such as the Fourth Geneva Convention, Rome Statute, and Genocide Convention.
• The CRA is required, by international law, to “carefully review any organization that is financially or politically supporting the unlawful occupation.” Specifically, Canada must not “give support to these organizations, for example through allowing the organization to have tax-exempt status or providing tax deductibility for donations to the organization and must ensure that financial contributions to support the unlawful occupation, including settlements and settlers, cease.”

The CRA violates domestic law through various legislation including:

• Income Tax Act, Foreign Enlistment Act, Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, and the Geneva Conventions Act

Canadian charities, regulated by the CRA, are actively funding Israeli occupation, apartheid, and genocide. This is not simply about “violent settlers.” Irregardless of individual settlers carrying out attacks, settler presence in the West Bank through outposts, settlements, or new infrastructure is illegal under international law and against Canadian public policy.

Canada is complicit. It is (past) time for the CRA to take action to halt its participation in the ongoing colonization of Palestine, through the facilitation of tax-subsidized funds for a genocidal military and apartheid regime.

This is also a prime opportunity for the CRA to take action in line with the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency’s (NSIRA) review of the Review and Analysis Division (RAD) which is tasked with ensuring charities do not fund terrorism. NSIRA found that most charities audited were Muslim or Sikh, and in many cases there was no clear risk of terrorist funding. Their conclusion: RAD’s decisions were potentially “driven by bias and discrimination.” This is not news to us, and of course not to the many Muslim charities that were and are unfairly targeted. The CRA responded by agreeing with 5 of the 6 recommendations from NSIRA. This is an opportunity for the CRA to put their words into action.

There is ample, credible evidence that Canadian charities are funding Israeli terrorism: war crimes, apartheid, genocide, and its illegal occupation. To not audit, suspend, and revoke these charities simply reinforces anti-Muslim discrimination and anti-Palestinian racism. The CRA can and must take urgent action.

List of charities and qualified donees included in complaints to the CRA:

• 1-R32 Foundation (731148292RR0001)
• Anne & Max Tanenbaum Community Hebrew Academy Of Toronto (129827226RR0001)
• Ariel University (qualified donee)
• Azrieli Foundation (892425166RR0001)
• Bar-Ilan University (qualified donee)
• Beit Halochem Canada /Aid To Disabled Veterans Of Israel (Canada) (118779081RR0001)
• Ben-Gurion University (qualified donee)
• Birthright Israel Foundation Of Canada (879358612RR0001)
• Bnei Akiva School (119306009 RR 0001)
• Canada Charity Partners (818335390RR0001)
• Canadian Associates of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Inc. (106869183 RR 0001)
• Canadian Foundation for Education and Welfare of Jews of the CIS (137508370RR0001)
• Canadian Friends of Bar-Ilan University (106846520RR0001)
• Canadian Friends of Haifa University (106846538RR0001)
• Canadian Friends of Hebrew University (124355363RR0001)
• Canadian Friends of Sheba Medical Enter (890940448RR0001)
• Canadian Friends of Tel Aviv University (124035643RR0001)
• Canadian Friends Of The Shalom Hartman Institute (887099992RR0001)
• Canadian Friends Of Yeshivat Har Etzion (118832732RR0001)
• Canadian Zionists Cultural Association (108075748RR0001)
• Chabad Lubavitch (855088654RR0001)
• CRIB Canada (844902825RR0001)
• Empower Ministries (858042872RR0001)        
• Emunah Canada (107304446RR0001)
• Foundation for Public Policy Development (769006933RR0001)
• Friends of JNF Canada (762236461RR0001)
• Hebrew University (qualified donee)
• HESEG Foundation (834998965RR0001)
• HonestReporting Canada (799547534RR0001)
• IDF Widows And Orphans Canada (816519243RR0001)
• International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (869411587RR0001)
• Israel Magen Fund of Canada (845641299RR0001)
• Israel’s Peace Ministries (859174955RR0001)
• Jerusalem College of Technology (qualified donee)
• Jewish Heritage Foundation of Canada (118974294RR0001)
• Jewish National Fund of Canada (now revoked)
• Magen Herut Canada (714293479RR0001)
• Maharam Tav Fund (843395195RR0001)
• Mizrachi Canada (119043891RR0001)
• Ne’eman Foundation (now revoked)
• Oorah Charitable Foundation (Kars4Kids) 807556071 RR 0001
• Reichman University (qualified donee)
• Ronnen Harray Foundation (730740339RR0001)
• Shomrim Toronto (795441302RR0001)
• Technion (qualified donee)
• Technion Canada (118836519RR0001)
• Tel Aviv University (qualified donee)
• The Canadian Friends of the Jerusalem College of Technology School of Applied Sciences (139807176RR0001)
• The Canadian Society for the Weizmann Institute of Science (130930092RR0001)
• The David Hofstedter Family Foundation (119229466RR0001)
• The Emunium Fund (716794748 RR 0001, now revoked)
• The Gerald Schwartz & Heather Reisman Foundation (138445580RR0001)
• The Jerusalem Foundation of Canada Inc (108085218RR0001)
• The Weizmann Institute of Science (qualified donee)
• United Israel Appeal of Canada (134593391RR0001)
• University of Haifa (qualified donee)
• and others including asking CRA to investigate charities including family foundations making donations to these ‘charities’