A charity supporting Canadian first responders and their families has ceased operations and is suing both its former CEO and treasurer, alleging massive fraud and misappropriation of donor funds.
The Canadian Critical Incident Stress Foundation (CCISF) was formed in 2013, to support police, fire and paramedic personnel who were dealing with PTSD, and the families of those who died in the line of service, or took their own lives. CBC News has learned that the Hamilton-based charity shut down late last year, and has filed suit against its former CEO Renee Jarvis and former treasurer Kelsey Pitt.
Jarvis helped start the organization, was its first employee, and in 2018 hired Pitt, her daughter, who also goes by the name Kelsey Gallant.
The lawsuit, filed in Ontario Superior Court in September, claims Jarvis and Pitt failed to send payroll deductions to the Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA), running up a $90,000 tax bill. They then allegedly loaned themselves more than $150,000 of the organization’s funds to purportedly help pay down the debt.
The lawsuit seeks to recover those funds, plus unspecified amounts for costs and damages.
Pitt and Jarvis “worked together to, without knowledge of, or permission from CCISF, take funds from the Organization for their personal use and enjoyment,” according to the statement of claim.
The suit contends the pair “actively concealed,” the debt and missing funds from the charity’s board of directors, submitting “false financial statements” at annual general meetings. It also alleges Pitt stopped coming to work in April 2022, after the CRA began an audit, although her mother kept her on the payroll until February 2024, when the board terminated Pitt’s employment.
Jarvis was fired in November 2024. Both earned salaries in excess of $90,000 a year, plus benefits, according to the lawsuit.
The claim says the organization is undertaking a forensic audit to determine if other monies have gone astray.
A lawyer representing Jarvis declined a CBC News request for an interview or comment. Pitt’s lawyer also declined comment. Statements of defence have not yet been filed with the court.
Summer camp shuttered
The CCSIF ran annual conferences for PTSD sufferers. But its main focus was Camp FACES (Family and Children of Emergency Services), a summer getaway for bereaved families.
Harold Coffin, who took over as chair of the CCSIF board after the allegations came to light, says he made the difficult decision to start shutting down the charity’s activities last fall.
“We figured it would be tough to continue to run, or raise funds for our programs,” said Coffin, a retired OPP officer.
A final Camp FACES was held this past summer, and Coffin is now trying to wind down the organization in accordance with CRA rules.
“It was sad to close. I believed in the camp,” he said. “It was for the families, it was for the children because of the circumstances they found themselves in with the death of a loved one.”
Coffin says he is waiting for the results of the audit before deciding whether to file a complaint with the police.
The lawsuit claims that Jarvis, a former civilian employee of the Hamilton Police Service, has a criminal conviction for tax fraud in the United States.
A June 2014 news release from the U.S. Attorney in Rochester, N.Y., says an Ontario resident named Renee Jarvis had pleaded guilty to filing a false tax return that netted a refund of $404,120 US. The U.S. Attorney’s office did not respond to CBC News requests for more information about the case.
Questions about fundraising costs
Publicly available financial summaries filed with the CRA show that the CCSIF consistently spent far more on fundraising than on its programs, making heavy use of third-party services like telemarketers.
For example, in 2020, it raised $947,000, but paid $491,000 to its external fundraisers and $285,000 on management and administration, compared to $153,000 on programming.
CRA guidelines say fundraising costs for registered charities should not exceed 35 per cent of their budget. But over the five tax years ending in 2024, the CCSIF spent an average of 61 per cent.
Kate Bahen, managing director of Charity Intelligence, a national watchdog, said groups on her organization’s Top 100 list spent, on average, just 25 per cent on overhead, including fundraising, management and all other costs.
The sector’s growing reliance on third-party, for-profit, fundraising companies is a big problem, she says.
“It’s hurting Canadians, and it’s hurting charities that play by the rules,” she said.
As things stand, the onus is on donors to do their own research and determine how much of their gift will be devoted to the actual charitable cause.
“How much do you expect a donor to go to the government website, and figure out how to navigate, and look up this charity’s name and then go through schedule 6 to see how much is really going to fundraising?” Bahen asked. “The CRA is seeing these filings. They should be stepping in.”
Bahen notes charity boards are responsible for ensuring, to the greatest extent possible, that donated funds are being used to support the cause.
“As a director of a charity, you are responsible for the donor, for the stakeholders,” she said. “You do have to attend the meetings and you do have to read the details.”
No one from CCISF’s previous board is still serving. Coffin, the chair, withheld comment saying he wasn’t sufficiently familiar with the numbers.
A devastating letter
Last winter, the CCISF sent a letter to families who had attended Camp FACES, informing them about the turmoil within the organization and the decision to shut the charity down.
“I was just completely devastated to the point where I didn’t even want to tell my kids,” said Sarah Routhier-Clark, the widow of Sylvan Routhier, an OPP officer who took his own life in 2018. “This was a family event we looked forward to every year. It was always blocked off on our calendar way in advance.”
Routhier-Clark says the camp offered much more than fun activities and sunny days at the lake.
It “provided such a safe and supportive community,” she said. “The kids got to learn how to express emotion, and how to rebuild their confidence, and to just have fun. And the adults got to attend workshops about grief, and about learning to parent solo, and how to find moments of joy again in our life.”
Routhier-Clark and some other attendees are hoping to carry on the mission with a new, unaffiliated group, Frontline Families. They have applied for charitable status and hope to start offering their own retreat in next summer.
“The camp is what brought me so much inspiration for a lot of things I’ve done in my life, since my husband’s passing to try and help others,” she said.
“There’s a really unique layer of loss that comes with the death of a first responder, that most other people can’t understand.”
Jonathon Gatehouse can be contacted via email at [email protected], or the CBC’s digitally encrypted Securedrop system at https://www.cbc.ca/securedrop/
