Controversial Leadnow steps up after B.C. vote
Elections Canada has report alleging violations of election spending limits
Leadnow, a non-profit group recently named in a report sent to Elections Canada alleging political interference, is actively involved with B.C.’s provincial election results and Vancouver civic affairs this week.
On Tuesday the group joined other activists on the steps of the B.C. legislature, urging the B.C. NDP and B.C. Green party to form a coalition.
Leadnow members delivered boxes of petitions to Victoria-Beacon Hill MLA Carole James of the NDP and Cowichan Valley MLA-elect Sonia Furstenau of the Greens, while its executive director Lyndsay Poaps spoke.
The Leadnow website has also been collecting names for another petition, calling for Vancouver city hall to reject a rezoning proposal by the Beedie Group to develop a condo tower at 105 Keefer St. in Vancouver’s Chinatown. The application went to public hearing Tuesday evening.
“We get our money from Canadians, small donations,” Poaps told Postmedia News, refuting claims filed last week with Elections Canada — and reported this week by the Calgary Herald — that foreign money “spawned” Leadnow and helped fund an elaborate campaign to oust the ruling Conservative party.
According to the Herald, a report entitled Elections Canada Complaint Regarding Foreign Influence “alleges third parties worked with each other, which may have bypassed election spending limits — all of which appears to be in contravention of the Canada Elections Act.”
The report, submitted by Canada Decides, a registered society with three listed directors (including Joan Crockatt, a former Conservative MP for Calgary Centre who lost her seat to Liberal Kent Hehr) went on to say the “outcome of the 2015 election was skewed by money from wealthy foreigners.”
It said that during the 2015 election year, U.S.-based Tides Foundation donated $1.5 million to “Canadian third parties.”
“We submitted our reports and our audits to Elections Canada. They’ve reviewed them and raised no concerns with us,” said Poaps, who added Leadnow has received “small grants from Tides Canada in the past.”
“We didn’t corroborate with anyone. ... Our audited financial statements every year get posted on our website.
“... We have a policy, which we’ve been public about, that we don’t accept more than 25 per cent of our budget from international donations, and that’s for international co-operation on issues of our times that require our co-operation like climate change.”
There is a Tides Foundation with offices in San Francisco and New York.
There is also Tides Canada, which is based in Vancouver on West Hastings Street.
The Canadian charity, which used to allow foreign donors to make contributions in Canada without needing to have charitable status, has been put under federal audit in the past, going back to late 2010 when North Vancouver researcher Vivian Krause raised concerns about the foreign funding of environmental groups in Canada. Registered charities are allowed to spend a maximum of 10 per cent of their revenues on so-called “political activity” that is related to their cause.
Following the audit, Tides Canada did not have its charitable status revoked, and it has said in the past that it has not backed any political party or candidate for office.
At the end of 2016, Tides Canada quietly closed its so-called “international donation matching mechanism.”
This had allowed for a “significant amount of cross-border philanthropy” because it enabled “an American donor (who) may want to donate to a charity in Canada, but want to receive a tax receipt from a U.S. charity” and vice versa, according to Toronto-based lawyer Mark Blumberg, who specializes in nonprofit organizations and registered charities.
According to Blumberg’s article at GlobalPhilanthropy.ca, “the biggest challenge perhaps was that the amount of money Canadians and U.S. donors wanted to give to the other country at various points of time was not equally matched. Therefore, in some cases, a gift to Tides Canada could result in a delay of more than a year for those funds being granted by Tides U.S.”
An emailed request for information sent to Vancouver-based Joel Solomon, president of Renewal Partners — who served on the board of Tides Foundation and cofounded Tides Canada — was not answered by deadline.