JMJ
January 05,2011
The Twelfth Day of Christmas
We were talking to a reputable and ethical Chartered Accountant. He does a lot of work for charities and non- profit corporations. Thus he is very familar with the Non- Profit Corporations Branch of Consumers Affairs which happens to be under the Ministry of Justice. He told us two very interesting things.
I. A charity does not have to have a review by an accountant unless its income is over $25000 annually.
L’Ecole Notre Dame du Nord never has had an income that comes close to that. In 2009 its income was about one- third that. It is not likely that 2010 will be much different. In the fifteen years of the mission existence,we have twice packed up all our papers and given them to accountants to do. In both cases they were bullied into not helping us and returned our papers. We asked a near by businessman to review our accounts one year. He signed the statement. Consumers branch states we must have a review by someone acceptable to them. This I assumed ment that they would insist on someone that they could control. In the mean time every year Canadian Revenue Agency, Charities Division has accepted our financial statements. In 2008 those trying to take away our house posted our financial statement on their blogs. The public had plenty of opportunity to review it. No criticisms came our way.
We use a format that Consumers Branch gave us . They accepted our statements for years. Then the harrassment began. Statements that had their stamp were returned. If we changed things in an attempt to suit them they wrote and asked why we changed our format. They took away our status twice, each time costing us a fee. In January 2009 they cashed our registration fee but have refused to restore our status. One of the regulations to be a registered independent school is the group has to be registered as a non- profit corporation. Thus a handful of not- so- civil servants with a bee in their bonnet can stop an educational decision in a government department that has nothing to do with education. Justice’ only educational purpose should be to make sure the rights of parents to educational choice is protected as it is in law..
They deleted a school from the list of activities of the mission . We personally handed the corrected papers to Minister of Justice staff on June 30.
II The second thing that the Chartered Accountant told us is Consumers Branch never asks for more than three financial statements to be reviewed.
They have demanded from us a review of all the financial statements from 2000 which includes comparable figures from 1999 to now. That would cost us tens of thousands even if the accountant gave us a reduced rate. They are demanding reviews of statements already accepted by them , and already approved by Ottawa. We kept saying that we can’t afford an accountant and according to the act we don’t need one. They are keeping this up precisely because they don’t believe we can financially meet their impossible demands.
When I wrote and explained what the act stated, they ignored the law and said that they intend to maintain the standards of Monte Curle. This is a man that we have never met and about which we know nothing except that he was the originator of the initial harassment. People are to be governed by law and not by Curles or others.
On December 16 after a visit from education officials Mr. Caswell phoned Consumers Branch. The person made it very clear that a Chartered Accountant would be acceptable. Well a Chartered Accountant has given us two very important pieces of information that proves what we suspected all along. A handful of people in the Ministry of Justice are inventing barriers to stop us and the mission. Have we and you heard this before? Gay
