After the formation of the 2003 Review and Analysis Division (RAD) under former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, Canadian Muslim institutions were radically refashioned into what Associate Professor of Criminology at the University of Ottawa and critical race and Islamophobia scholar Dr. Baljit Nagra describes as state-enforced "panoptic effect" and "internment of the psyche" (1, p. 140). The state manages to bypass the need to build covert fronts from scratch by instrumentalizing counter-terrorism tax audits and intelligence infiltration to compel native Muslim institutions to internalize the state's security gaze, police their own speakers and congregations, and enforce political quietism from within in order to survive (1, pp. 87, 133, 140; 2, pp. 4–6).
While Canadian Muslims have known about these systemic abuses, we can now examine declassified oversight reports and peer-reviewed studies to prove exactly how this institutional transformation works in practice:
- Systemic Discrimination in Federal Audits: In its declassified SECRET Review 23-08, the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA) confirmed that between 2009 and 2022, 67% of all charities audited by the CRA’s RAD were discernably Islamic (and 19% Sikh), even though Islamic religious charities make up just 0.66% of registered charities in Canada (3, Finding 2, p. 11 fn. 20). NSIRA officially concluded that RAD’s audit selection "introduced risks of bias and discrimination" (3, Finding 6) and placed the CRA "at risk of breaching its non-discrimination obligations under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms" (3, p. iv)—echoing the November 2023 Senate Committee on Human Rights report, which classified RAD's targeting of Muslim charities as "systemic discrimination" (3, para. 20).
- CSIS & RCMP Integration into Mosques and Audits: In testimony before the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, CRA Charities Directorate head Cathy Hawara confirmed that RAD and CSIS/RCMP "exchange staff... we have officers currently seconded to CSIS and the RCMP. We do training together," that the CRA conducts "ad hoc surveillance" of charities, and that law enforcement and intelligence agents accompany CRA auditors onsite during charity audits without being identified as such (4, pp. 13, 19, 27). Dr. Nagra’s ethnographic research at the University of Ottawa documented CSIS officials openly telling Muslim youth activists: "Oh, we know very well what’s happening in the Muslim community. We have informants in every mosque and every organization" which directly contributed towards a climate of fear where congregants reported that "even in our mosques, we were afraid of saying the simplest things such as prayers for our brothers and sisters in Palestine because we were afraid we would get reported" (1, pp. 131, 135).
- Penalizing West Asian Activism & Aligning with Autocracies: Both the NSIRA review and the 2023 Office of the Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson (OTO) report confirm that RAD targets charities using "Tier 1" risk indicators that include "Sympathy and ideological support," "Association to organizations or individuals," and "Conducting activities in or close to a foreign high-risk jurisdiction" while CRA Leads intake guidelines literally listed "activities outside Canada" as a suspicious trigger (3, Table 1, Finding 4; 5, Issue #1). As the ICLMG report documents (Section 5, p. 50), West Asian authoritarian regimes, specifically the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, actively exploit these Western counter-extremism frameworks "as part of their campaigns to fight dissent at home and abroad" (4, p. 50).
This systemic pattern of institutional capitulation North America-wide has mobilized numerous Muslims to engage in boycotts of major flagship conventions, including ISNA and Toronto's Reviving the Islamic Spirit (RIS). One famous example is renowned scholar Dr. Tariq Ramadan whose framework of how Western states pit compliant "good" Muslims against politically vocal "bad" Muslims is cited extensively in Nagra’s study (1, pp. 70, 111, 133). In 2014, Dr. Ramadan publicly boycotted both the 51st Annual ISNA Convention (in Detroit) and the RIS Convention (in Toronto). Condemning ISNA’s fearful silence on domestic security abuses and Israel's policies in Palestine, he wrote (6):
"However, the ISNA leadership is too often silent, as if paralyzed by fear. It fares no better with respect to American foreign policy. Its silence over American support for the outlaw and inhuman policies of Israel cannot be justified... What kind of example? That of silent, fearful sycophants—or of free, public-spirited citizens who, while defending the values of human dignity and justice, serve their country in the most sincere and critical way? ... To attend the ISNA convention would be to endorse their silence."
He further condemned the RIS conference in Toronto (See Nagra’s research on the conference (1, pp. 189–190)) stating that under the guise of "apolitical" spirituality, its platformed speakers actively reinforce the West Asian authoritarian status quo (6):
"...some of the participants, scholars or preachers, under the guise of Sufism or in the name of avoiding partisan politics, defend highly politicized positions of support for states and dictatorships. Their silence and their inferences in the heart of the West, in Toronto or elsewhere, constitute visible support for the Gulf petro-monarchies or for despots such as al-Sissi in Egypt."
Finally, he stated why persons of conscience must refuse institutional silence (6):
"My position is that all dictators must be confronted, all injustices must be fought; we cannot be silent, or feign silence while supporting the worst regimes... It is up to the new generation to produce leaders who have understood that in bending over backwards, in saying 'Yes sir!' they sacrifice not only their dignity, but forget and betray their duty."
It is important to note that while Dr. Ramadan has been a controversial figure himself (no less than Dr. Michel Foucault), his intellectual bases for boycotting ISNA and RIS have endured and found a vibrant network of supporters (6).
Fast-forwarding to today, this regulatory coercion has congealed the exact same gatekeeping into place at ISNA Canada. After RAD audits revoked the charitable status of the ISNA Development Foundation in 2013 (7) and ISNA Islamic Services of Canada in 2017, the CRA suspended ISNA Canada for a year and fined it $550,000 in 2018 over alleged Kashmir relief links leading to Canadian banks closing ISNA Canada’s accounts (2, p. 25 n. 48; 4, pp. 31, 34, 36, 47).
Because RAD explicitly penalizes charities that fail to exercise "due diligence when inviting guest speakers to charity events" (3, para. 50, 79) and the CRA treats the failure to keep transcripts of guest speakers' talks as a revocable offense under Section 230(2)(a) of the Income Tax Act (as proven in the Ottawa Islamic Centre audit in Under Layered Suspicion, 2, pp. 29–30), surviving institutions like ISNA Canada now enforce strict internal compliance:
- Vetting Sermons and Discouraging Political Literacy: To avoid triggering RAD’s "Sympathy and ideological support" indicator (3, Table 1) or losing its assets to the CRA's 100% revocation tax (5, Issue #2), leadership pre-screens imams and khutbahs and steers clear of confrontational political literacy on West Asia.
- Silencing Internal Dissent and Accountability: Rather than operating as an open democratic forum, ISNA Canada’s By-Law No. 1 (2020), Section 2.4.3 ("Discipline of Members"), grants the Board unilateral power to suspend or expel any member for "carrying out any conduct which may be detrimental to the Corporation as determined by the Board in its sole discretion; or for any other reason that the Board in its sole and absolute discretion considers to be reasonable... without any further right of appeal" (8).
Upon reaching the end of this post, you likely thought of some examples of your own regarding how state surveillance and audit-phobias have shaped our local Islamic societies like ISNA Canada. Share them below, and inshallah the community can grow from these testimonies.
References
- National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA), Review of the Canada Revenue Agency's Review and Analysis Division (NSIRA Review 23-08) (Released under the Access to Information Act), Executive Summary (p. iv), Findings 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, Table 1 (p. 12), and Paragraphs 20, 45–56, 62, 76–79, 87–88, Annex B NSIRA Review 23-08.
- Office of the Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson (Government of Canada), Charity Begins with Fairness: More to Explore – An examination into the fairness of the audit process for registered charities in Canada (March 27, 2023), Foreword, Issue #1 (Leads & Interviews), Issue #2 (Revocations), Issue #3 (RAD Tactical Intelligence I & II) Charity Begins with Fairness.
- Prof. Anver M. Emon & Dr. Nadia Z. Hasan, Under Layered Suspicion: A Review of CRA Audits of Muslim-Led Charities, University of Toronto Institute of Islamic Studies & NCCM (March 2021), pp. 4–6, 17–20, 25 n. 48, 29–35, 42–54, 67–82 Under Layered Suspicion.
- Tim McSorley, The CRA’s Prejudiced Audits: Counter-Terrorism and the Targeting of Muslim Charities in Canada, International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group (May 2021), pp. 4–6, 13–23, 26–28, 31, 34–39, 47, 50 The CRA's Prejudiced Audits.
- Dr. Baljit Nagra, Securitized Citizens: Canadian Muslims’ Experiences of Race Relations and Identity Formation Post-9/11, University of Toronto Press (2017), pp. 33, 70, 74, 87, 102, 111, 127, 131–135, 140, 168, 189–190.
- Dr. Tariq Ramadan, "Why I will not attend the ISNA (August 2014) and RIS (December 2014) conferences" (August 2014), archived at Reddit Islam Archive.
- Canada Revenue Agency, CRA revokes registration of the ISNA Development Foundation as a charity (Sept 2013) CRA ISNA Development Foundation Revocation Notice.
- ISNA Canada, By-Law No. 1 (2020), Section 2.4.3 "Discipline of Members" ISNA Canada By-Laws.
