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“When the current government came to office, the prime minister characterized these audits as ‘political harassment’ in his mandate letter to the national revenue minister, and the finalization of the political activity audits was suspended (by the CRA),” she told the attentive crowd of 170 chamber members and their guests.

Photo by Jim Wells / Postmedia

Krause testified before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance about changes made by the Trudeau government to the income tax act with regard to charities.

The main changes to the legislation are the removal of restrictions on the extent to which charities are allowed to engage in political activity — something that was not historically allowed except by registered political parties.

Suspiciously, seven days after she testified, the CRA eliminated the online access to more than one million tax returns, says Krause.

“Every single tax return for every single registered charity for 14 years. All that historical data, gone,” she said, saying that only the five most recent years remain online.

A spokesperson for the CRA, reached past business hours in Ottawa on Wednesday, was unable to find out why those documents were removed from public view but is attempting to obtain that information.

“This fall we’ve got an election coming up and a lot of this goes right to the prime minister’s office,” said Krause. “The fact that he suspended all the political activity audits for four years, then changed the law retroactively and then finalized the audits, I think it’s something we need to talk about but it’s going to be very difficult unless those tax returns are restored.”