By Henry J. Svec
Founder-Senior Investigator www.charterjustice.ca
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When I received the letter from the Ontario Psychological Association (OPA) asking for money to assist with a legal fund, I became suspicious. The OPA is a Not-For-Profit that is supposed to help promote the profession of Psychology in the Province of Ontario. I wondered what this call to fund some legal action was all about so over time asked to see their financial statements.
That’s when things started to happen. They pushed back; “What is the reason you want to see the statements? Would you be sharing them with others? And finally, “If you come to Toronto we’d like to explain them to you.” Now I know how to read financial statements and dig into them. From business experience as well as my tenure on some Not-For-Profit Boards it’s not that complicated if you know where to look. About the same time, I was training to be licensed as a Private Investigator in the Province of Ontario, so I paid for my ticket and took the train to Toronto. What transpired at that meeting and the months after that is very difficult to believe. Fraud, corruption, theft, and deceit appear to be the flavour of the day at this Not-For-Profit.
Eventually, I learned that the OPA had experienced a theft initially pegged at 1.6 million dollars (I was told this at that lunch in Toronto) then ballooning to 2.8 million dollars. The blame according to the current employees rested with a former staff member that was recently found not guilty of the crimes. So I asked more questions and was told that because civil litigation was in process nothing more could be said. So here are some of what I learned that may also be a sign to you that the Not-For-Profit that you support may be stealing money from you.
- They refuse to be transparent. There is a great deal of information that isn’t shared with you, the person writing the checks. They don’t provide financial statements when asked and if they do when you ask for detail they push back.
- There is a sense of entitlement and superiority. “How dare you ask for more information, what don’t you trust us?”
- You quickly become the enemy. “Are you trying to destroy this organization?”
- If they provide you with some information they will ask you not to share it with anyone else.
- There are no checks and balances on how money is being spent.
- There are boundary violations meaning cash is used for personal gifts, parties and other gatherings. Family members are hired for various tasks and their salaries not disclosed.
- Employee salaries are not shared with anyone.
- They try to blame one employee for all of the problems. Do you really believe one employee can steal 2.8 million dollars from an organization without anyone else noticing?
- No one takes responsibility for mistakes. It’s the one rogue employee, or accountant, or computer system. All of those on the Board of any Not-For-Profit are duty-legally bound to ensure your funds are being spent the way they were intended. Even if someone else is stealing the money, the Board is ultimately responsible.
- Litigation in Canada is difficult to win and not always suggested. It costs a great deal to litigate someone and even if you are successful you aren’t guaranteed that you will be able to collect the award. Deciding to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on litigation should be one made by those supporting the organization financially.
At www.charterjustice.ca we continue to investigate the OPA, one other party that we believe benefited substantially from the frauds and one other related Not-For-Profit with similar suspicious financial reporting.
If you’d like to read the Judge’s not-guilty decision on this OPA matter here it is. https://www.canlii.org/en/on/oncj/doc/2016/2016oncj810/2016oncj810.html?resultIndex=1
At Charter Justice we are always looking for public input into our cases, so if you have any information that could help us solve this case go to www.charterjustice.ca and contact us.
