As Finance Canada presides over a highly contentious debate over raising the minimum rate at which charitable foundations must give away their money, officials are working under a conflict-of-interest screen to keep any mention of the file away from the department’s top civil servant.
The screen is in place because deputy finance minister Michael Sabia sits on the board of the Mastercard Foundation—Canada’s only “mega-foundation” and the charity with the most to gain or lose from any changes to that rate, as The Logic reported Tuesday.
