The Canada Revenue Agency is investigating an employee of the University of Prince Edward Island and spent a day gathering documents from the Tourism Research Centre offices on campus.
Last week, officials with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) arrived on the UPEI campus with a search warrant allowing them to search specific offices on the third floor of McDougall Hall. The offices are those occupied by the Tourism Research Centre.
But a spokesperson for the university said Monday the CRA is not investigating UPEI or the UPEI Tourism Research Centre. The search was conducted as part of an investigation into an individual’s personal income taxes.
“CRA officials are conducting an investigation with respect to a personal income tax issue that is unrelated to the university,” Nicole Phillips, a communications manager at UPEI, wrote in an email response to The Guardian.
“The university complied with the warrant, in accordance with its legal obligation to do so.”
UPEI would not comment on who was being investigated or why, but The Guardian has learned it is an employee of the university.
A source told The Guardian the CRA officers spent a full day collecting documents related to funding revenue and expense information for the individual under investigation.
Hmmmmm this post is discomforting in a couple of ways. First, it seems to imply ' new Canada' as some kind of a diversion away from unacceptable and perhaps illegal activity. I am pretty sick of Harperism but I do not condone tax evasion. Second, this post brushes over what seems to be some sort of a sleazy relationship amongst the government, the university and this individual whom I am told is of similar 'high pedigree' as many of our current Liberal political leaders in Charlottetown. This guy should pay up his taxes. And I hope that CRA, in concert with CBSA, is chasing down every privileged PNP numbered company cash recipient in the province as well. We can't afford ' free' money going untaxed. And we should not condone this kind of scummy behaviour unless we want our kids and grand kids to grow up with no moral compass whatsoever. If we adults keep on stealing why should the young people be any different? Economists studying developing countries always point out that corruption is a huge obstacle to economic development. The cleaning up of corruption is one of the key steps to PEI developing a modern economy. These tax dollars could have been put to much better use than enriching an already highly privileged character such as the one in question. If our politicians will not clean up PEI then let CRA do it.