A charity chaired by Mayor Joe Fontana and run by his son is on the verge of losing its charitable registration from the federal government,The Free Press has learned.

The Canada Revenue Agency has decided to revoke the registration of Trinity Global Support Foundation as of March 3.

That move prompted Trinity lawyers to launch an application in the federal Court of Appeal in Toronto to “stay” the order until they can make their case revocation isn’t warranted.

“(Revocation) would result in immediate unavoidable irreparable harm,” Trinity lawyer Duane R. Milot said in an application to the court.

Fontana is chair of Trinity Global and his son Ugo Joseph Fontana — also known as Joe Jr. — is president.

Trinity Global has seen explosive growth in donations of cash and in-kind gifts since 2008. In 2012, it issued tax receipts for $152 million, more than doubling from a year earlier.

Trinity says it sends HIV/AIDS medicines to Africa, offers breakfast programs to children in Canada and supports anti-bullying programs and food banks.

But a charity without charitable status cannot issue tax receipts and is out of the charity business, John Bryden, a former MP who spearheaded changes to Canada’s charity laws in the 1990s, said Wednesday.

And it raises many more questions, he said, such as: “Does the taxpayer have a claim against a charity for the foregone taxes?”

Bryden said he found it interesting CRA records indicate several board members of Trinity have stepped down in recent months.

“Directors have an obligation to the charity, and if the charity is in trouble the directors are to some extent liable for the trouble,” he said. “If they allowed the charity to deprive the people of Canada from legitimate taxes, I would say somebody needs to pay back those taxes.”

Last week, Bryden told The Free Press Trinity’s spectacular growth raised questions. After studying Trinity reports to the federal government, he said he can’t “fathom” how Trinity operates.

But neither Fontana junior or senior would answer then and they didn’t return calls Wednesday.

The Canada Revenue Agency refused to discuss Trinity Global, citing confidentiality provisions of the Income Tax Act.

But spokesperson Mylene Croteau said CRA records show “as of today, Trinity Global Support Foundation is a Canadian registered charity.”

Colin Campbell, a law professor at Western University, said charities can seek to extend a revocation deadline by 30 days but “have not in the past been particularly successful.”

Success or failure in such a bid “does not affect their ability to challenge the deregistration later in the Federal Court of Appeal.”

Campbell has written a book, Administration of Income Tax 2012.

If Trinity loses its charitable status as proposed, it will become the fifth Canadian charity to lose its status for partnering with a tax shelter the revenue agency has described in court documents as a “sham.”

Trinity ended a one-year partnership with that tax shelter, Global Learning Gifting Initiative, in December. Global provides educational computer “courseware” to charities to upgrade education and teach trades to the underprivileged.

Earlier casualties connected to Global Learning are Glooscap Heritage Society in Nova Scotia and Millennium Charitable Foundation, International Charity Association and Malvern Rouge Valley Youth Services in Ontario.

The CRA disallowed tax receipts issued by Global Learning in recent years, prompting a class-action lawsuit from donors who donated a few hundred dollars and received receipts in the tens of thousands of dollars.

In 2011, Simple Financial Management of London advertised on Kijiji that a donation of as little as $500 to Trinity Global could produce “$27,000 of income tax credits.”

Joe Fontana Sr., joined the board of Trinity in 2008 at the request of founder, former business partner and boyhood chum Vince Ciccone. That first year with Fontana at the helm saw tax receipts issued totalling $72,500.

Ciccone left the board when the Ontario Securities Commission charged him with violating securities laws.

Ciccone was charged with fraud and misleading investors and last year reached a deal with the securities regulator to repay investors in his Ciccone Group $15 million. He was banned from selling securities for life.

chip.martin@sunmedia.ca

twitter.com/ChipatLFPress

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Trinity by the Numbers