JNF Canada CEO Lance Davis blasts CRA after charitable status revoked

The CJN Daily with Ellin Bessner

The CEO of the embattled Jewish National Fund of Canada, Lance Davis, insists he is now “running a very tight ship” in the wake of the Canada Revenue Agency’s recent decision to strip the historic Zionist fundraising organization of its charitable status.

Davis, who became JNF Canada’s CEO in 2017, maintains that many of the government's longstanding concerns had already been addressed in years past. In an interview with The CJN Daily, Davis blasted the CRA for deliberately choosing the harshest punishment for the venerated Zionist charity, which has sent more than $200 million to beautify Israel and help vulnerable people there. He also argues the CRA rushed to pull the trigger on its status too early, given how JNF's legal dispute is still before the courts.

However, documents obtained by The Canadian Jewish News paint a more nuanced picture of why the CRA lost its patience after a decade of "major concerns" about "repeated and serious non-compliance” with Canada’s Income Tax Act rules. As reported in The CJN's print feature that digs into the paperwork, the auditors quietly told the Jewish charity several times that it needed to clean up its act, and by 2019, JNF Canada knew Ottawa was moving to revoke. Yet the charity still got five more years to comply.

Lance Davis joins The CJN Daily to explain JNF Canada's point of view, then we're joined once again by charity law expert Mark Blumberg who helps explain how the charity got to this point, what could have prevented this scenario and why the government stopped waiting.

What we talked about

• Read why JNF Canada has known for a decade it was at risk of losing its charitable status, in TheCJN.ca
• Read the CRA's documents for yourselves outlining its case vs. JNF Canada since 2014
• JNF Canada said it was 'blindsided", on The CJN Daily back on Aug. 13

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner) [e-mail]
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

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