Case Study: How Open data saved Canada $3.2 Billion
In his excellent blog about open government and open data, David Eaves describes how a Toronto consultant exposed a multi-billion charities fraud – simply by analyzing contributions data obtained from Canada Revenue Agency.
Using just a PC and a spreadsheet, the consultant analyzed the contributions reported by charities in Toronto during 2005 – a dataset that he had obtained from CRA – and uncovered some startling facts.
Sorting the spreadsheet by total contributions revealed that two hitherto obscure charities had each raised far more money than the United Way, Canada's leading charitable organization. This was clearly implausible and likely fraudulent. Worse, the data revealed that four out of the top 15 charities on the list were suspect.
The outcome was that over the next few years CRA deregistered numerous fraudulent charities and disallowed or questioned $3.2 billion in tax receipts claimed by 100,000 Canadian tax filers. And a class action suit against one of these charticies was launched by thousands of donors.
If one person with a spreadsheet could accomplish this by scrutinizing a tiny sliver of one department's records, imagine what waste and misconduct could be uncovered if the government would abandon its obsessive secrecy and open more of its books to scrutiny by citizens. Why not? It is our money.
See the complete post on David Eaves blog
From: FAIR (Federal Accountability Initiative for Reform) <subscriptions@fairwhistleblower.ca>
Date: Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 11:45 AM
Subject: FAIR Monthly Headlines
To: siegholle@gmail.com
FAIR Monthly Headlines: August 2010A list of articles added to the FAIR website last month. These are about whistleblowing, whistleblowers, and the types of misconduct that they typically expose. Alex Roslin – August 28, 2010 Dr. Shiv Chopra still remembers the words his friend spoke a few days before he died. "Every time I come here, I vomit," Dr. Chris Basudde, a fellow Health Canada doctor, had said. "I feel sick. I can't take this." Chopra told his friend to see a doctor and take some time off work. Days later, he was stunned to learn that Basudde had died of a suspected heart attack. Nico Hines – August 30, 2010 THE Chilean mine where 33 men are trapped should not have been allowed to reopen after fatal accidents forced its closure, say officials and miners. Alejandro Garcia-Huidobro, chairman of the parliamentary committee investigating the tunnel collapse, has lent his support to widespread allegations of corruption and bribery surrounding the reopening in 2008 of the San Jose mine in Chile's Atacama desert. Michael Smyth – August 29, 2010 If you think Vancouver's Winter Olympics were expensive, you should check out the mounting bills in Russia, where they're blowing so many rubles out the door they make the budget for our little party look like a peewee shinny tournament. Costs for the Sochi 2014 Games are exploding due to blown construction budgets, soaring security bills, unforeseen costs to deal with the semitropical location and – especially – rampant corruption, the Moscow Times reports. Alex Roslin – August 28, 2010 Faced with mounting secrecy and the failure of official channels of complaint, whistle-blowers seem to be turning increasingly to the Internet and websites pledged to expose government and corporate secrets, in the public interest. For whistle-blowers, the sites allow them to expose secrets as fast as they can hit "send." Critics argue the sites may endanger lives by posting national security information. Moira Baird – August 26, 2010 ST. JOHNS, N.L. — Cougar Helicopters and eight insurance companies, led by U.K. firm Lloyd's, are suing Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., for more than $26.6 million in combined damages and losses resulting from the March 12, 2009, helicopter crash that killed 17 people off the coast of Newfoundland. Also named as defendants in the lawsuit are Helicopter Support Inc., which is Sikorsky's parts and repair subsidiary, and Transport Canada. David Hutton – August 27, 2010 In his excellent blog about open government and open data, David Eaves describes how a Toronto consultant exposed a multi-billion charities fraud – simply by analyzing contributions data obtained from Canada Revenue Agency. Using just a PC and a spreadsheet, the consultant analyzed the contributions reported by charities in Toronto during 2005 – a dataset that he had obtained from CRA – and uncovered some startling facts. Ottawa Citizen editorial – August 26, 2010 When Canada has trouble measuring how much snow is on the ground, something is seriously wrong with the state of government research. An internal Environment Canada report from 2008, released through an access to information request, shows that cuts to the Meteorological Service of Canada have left this country without accurate weather data. We're not talking about a lack of money for fancy computer models or self-indulgent research projects. No, this is about basic measurement of stuff like temperature, rainfall and hours of sunshine. Margaret Munro – August 26, 2010 Canada will pay a huge price for the Harper government's "short-sighted" decision to scrap the mandatory census, leading U.S. statisticians say. "This decision will lower the quality and raise the cost of information on nearly every issue before Canada's government," Stephen Fienberg at Carnegie Mellon University and Kenneth Prewitt at Columbia University say today in the journal Nature. Rhéal Séguin – August 24, 2010 Former Quebec justice minister Marc Bellemare has testified under oath that Premier Jean Charest gave his blessing to the role Quebec Liberal Party fundraisers played in the appointment of judges in the province. Mr. Bellemare's testimony on Tuesday before a commission of inquiry into the nomination of judges was so politically damaging that Mr. Charest rushed to deny the charges. Philip Authier and Marianne White – August 24, 2010 QUEBEC — Quebec Premier Jean Charest personally ordered his former justice minister to name two people to the bench because a party fundraiser wanted them to be made judges, Marc Bellemare testified on Tuesday. In explosive testimony before the Bastarache commission on Tuesday, Mr. Bellemare, the former justice minister, outlined a meeting between him and Mr. Charest on Sept. 2, 2003 in which he complained that powerful Liberal fundraisers were leaning on him to name certain people judges. Mike De Souza – August 23, 2010 OTTAWA - Sustained cuts to Environment Canada weather-service programs have compromised the government's ability to assess climate change and left it with a "profoundly disturbing" quality of information in its data network, says a newly released internal government report. The stinging assessment, obtained through an access-to-information request, suggests that Canada's climate network infrastructure is getting progressively worse and no longer meets international guidelines. Andrew Hanon – August 20, 2010 White-collar crime is evolving so quickly that police and the public are struggling to keep up with the latest scams, according to the Criminal Intelligence Service of Canada. "Criminal groups are constantly exploiting new ways and new opportunities," said Edmonton police Chief Mike Boyd. "It is important for Canadians to be aware the scope and range of illicit activity is constantly evolving." Lindsay Kines and Les Leyne – August 20, 2010 A draft copy of the Vancouver Police Department's internal report on the investigation of Robert Pickton confirms that police had compelling evidence pointing at the serial killer by August 1999 -- more than two years before his arrest. But because of jurisdictional battles, bad management, and shoddy analysis of the information, police turned their backs on Pickton, while he continued to take women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and murder them on his Port Coquitlam, B.C., farm. Pierre-Henry Deshayes (AFP) – August 19, 2010 REYKJAVIK — After Iceland's near-economic collapse laid bare deep-seated corruption, the country aims to become a safe haven for journalists and whistleblowers from around the globe by creating the world's most far-reaching freedom of information legislation. The project, developed with the help of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, flies in the face of a growing tendency of governments trying to stifle a barrage of secret and embarrassing information made readily available by the Internet. John Ibbitson – August 17, 2010 The Veterans Ombudsman isn't the first watchdog Stephen Harper has gotten rid of, but he is certainly the loudest. Claiming he was mere "window dressing" for an "obstructive and deceptive" bureaucracy, Pat Stogran promised veterans Tuesday he would use his remaining three months on the job making sure "Canadians know how badly so many of you are being treated." Sean Bruyea – August 17, 2010 As Canada attempts to remain buoyant after the recent economic flood, Ottawa's rush to cut the cost of government has one very large but often silent group on the chopping block: disabled veterans and their families. When Canadians hear the word "veteran," we quickly imagine a blazer-and-beret-clad senior, wavering at attention in the November cold of so many Remembrance Days past. Canada's Second World War veterans were once more than a million, but their numbers have dwindled with time. Chad Skelton – August 12, 2010 VANCOUVER — Money laundering by organized crime groups is rampant at Canadian casinos but police are essentially doing nothing to combat it, according to an internal RCMP report obtained by The Vancouver Sun. "Since 2003, FINTRAC [the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada] has sent several disclosure reports to the RCMP on suspicious transactions involving casinos throughout Canada, with amounts totalling over $40 million," the 2009 report states. Massimo Calabresi with Alice Park – August 12, 2010 Five days before a 2007 article in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that the diabetes drug Avandia was linked to a 43% increase in heart attacks compared with other medications or placebos, a group of scientists and executives from the drug's maker, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), gathered in a conference room at the offices of the Food and Drug Administration in White Oak, Md. The GSK goal: to convince regulators that the evidence that the company's $3 billion-a-year blockbuster drug caused heart problems was inconclusive. To do that, the GSK officials focused not on heart-attack data but on a broader, less well defined category of heart problems called myocardial ischemia. The most recent studies of Avandia, the GSK officials told the FDA, had "yielded information that is inconsistent with an increased risk of myocardial ischemic events," according to sealed court proceedings obtained by TIME. Brian Daly – August 10, 2010 MONTREAL – A Quebec City charter airline, grounded following two deadly crashes earlier this year, committed a litany of safety infractions over a nine-year period, according to Transport Canada. Aeropro was found to have violated safety regulations more than 100 times since 2001, according to documents Transport Canada submitted to a Federal Court this week, where Aeropro is trying to have its operating license reinstated. Jeremy Page – August 9, 2010 ISLAMABAD — Pakistan's devastating floods could have been contained if tens of millions of dollars for flood prevention projects had not been embezzled or misspent over the past three decades, water experts and activists have told The Times. Many Pakistanis have blamed the disaster on the current civilian government, in particular President Asif Ali Zardari, who returned to an angry nation Sunday after refusing to cancel a six-day visit to France and Britain. Dr Syed Mansoor Hussain – August 9, 2010 Sometimes things look so bad that even an optimist like me has a hard time finding some silver lining to the 'dark clouds' hanging over Pakistan. Man-made disasters, natural disasters, terrorism, target killings and now the complete collapse of the Pakistani cricket team. What has emerged most forcefully out of the confluence of all these 'problems' is that those who run this country at almost all levels are totally incapable of doing what is expected of them. Corruption is often labelled as the root cause of all evils in Pakistan. What has become obvious is that the basic problem we face as a country is not just corruption but rather rank incompetence of those who supposedly govern us. Sean Bruyea – August 9, 2010 There are 600,000 Canadian Forces veterans. More than 50,000 of them are suffering permanent injuries and will need some form of support for the rest of their lives. Why was this statistical elephant in the room ignored? At first glance, an independent and soundly functioning Statistics Canada's has little in common with the manner in which Canada treats its injured soldiers. However, objective, sound and thorough statistical science has much to do with how we honour the military sacrifices made in Canada's name. Michael Bronner – August 5, 2010 NEW YORK — It's the inner sanctum of Swiss banking — the heavily-guarded nexus between numbered Swiss bank accounts and their owner's good names — and it's the rare American that is allowed entry. Bradley Birkenfeld was one of the few Americans who held the keys to the kingdom. A Boston-born, high-flying, cross-border banker at Switzerland's premier financial institution, UBS, he had access to the kind of secret account information that American law enforcement had only dreamed of through all the decades that terrorists, dictators, arms dealers, mafia dons and wealthy tax cheats had hidden behind the fortress of secrecy that Swiss banking promised. Jeffrey G. MacIntosh – August 4, 2010 Looking for a formula to commit securities frauds with no downside risk? Look no further. Here's how it's done. It's really quite simple. Load up on put or call options in a given company's stock (depending on how you plan to manipulate the market), and then, on a promise of confidentiality, pass false and misleading information about that company to a reporter. Cash your options in when the price moves. Then sip pina coladas on a beach of your choice. Steve Ladurantaye and Greg McArthur – August 04, 2010 Carpet-cleaning contracts are behind a criminal investigation at three Ontario government ministries, according to court records, with civil servants accused of accepting kickbacks and rigging bids to line their pockets with cash and electronics. Premier Dalton McGuinty said last week that three government ministries were under investigation by the Ontario Provincial Police, but did not say why. Nigel Morris – August 2, 2010 Hospital doctors who quit their jobs are being routinely forced to sign "gagging orders" despite legislation designed to protect National Health Service whistleblowers, it is revealed today. Millions of pounds of taxpayers' money are being spent on contracts that deter doctors from speaking out about incompetence and mistakes in patient care. The Canadian Press – August 1, 2010 MONTREAL - Transport Canada has grounded a Quebec-based charter aviation company, effectively ending its air operations. The agency revoked Aeropro's operating permit Saturday night following an audit that found repeated violations of Canadian aviation regulations. The move by Transport Canada comes on the heels of an Aeropro plane crash near the airport last June that killed seven people. About FAIRFederal Accountability Initiative for Reform (FAIR) promotes integrity and accountability within government by empowering employees to speak out without fear of reprisal when they encounter wrongdoing. Our aim is to support legislation and management practices that will provide effective protection for whistleblowers and hence occupational free speech in the workplace. FAIR is a registered Canadian charity. http://fairwhistleblower.ca | Join us on Facebook |
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