Charities Law - Take Action! | Sierra Club Canada

freedom of speech Last month the government announced, to our disappointment, that it would be appealing the Superior Court of Justice’s decision in Canada Without Poverty v Canada. This decision had declared the restrictions on non-partisan political activities of charities to be a violation of free expression contrary to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, the government promised, at that time, to amend the Income Tax Act provisions in line with their expert panel’s recommendations.

The government has now revealed its proposed amendments and has opened up a short consultation process - which ends Saturday. We find the amendments to be unacceptable. They are not in keeping with the expert panel’s recommendations and do not implement the order of the Superior Court of Justice.

Please send your letter to Prime Minister Trudeau today. Tell him to follow the Superior Court of Justice and the expert panel’s recommendations and fix the rules. Charities must not be at risk from intrusive and harassing actions aimed at stopping them from speaking out about protecting the environment, ending poverty or defending human rights. We will make sure that your Member of Parliament receives your letter too, so that they can help ensure the right decision is made.

Thank you for taking action.

Gretchen Fitzgerald - National Program Director

To: The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada *

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Your message *

Dear Prime Minister,

It is important that the proposed changes to the Income Tax Act and CRA rules regarding political activities of charities be altered to explicitly permit non-partisan public policy dialogue and development activities without limitation, where these advance an organization’s charitable purposes. As such, I am asking you to change the following:

1. The proposed amendments are not consistent with Recommendation No. 3 from the Consultation Panel on Political Activities which indicates that the Income Tax Act should be amended "to explicitly allow charities to fully engage without limitation in non-partisan public policy dialogue and development, provided that it is subordinate to and furthers their charitable purposes".

2. The proposed amendments are not consistent with Justice Morgan’s decision in Canada Without Poverty v Canada which states that charitable activity should be interpreted to include non-partisan political activities  “without quantum limitation, in furtherance of the organization's charitable purposes.”

3. The Ministry of Finance has issued a Backgrounder and CRA has issued a new Guidance on how the amended legislation will be applied.  They have clearly indicated that if the proposed amendments are accepted in their current form, CRA will continue to apply restrictions based on outdated common law. They will continue to monitor any public policy advocacy by charities and revoke registration if such activities exceed what they deem acceptable. Their position is that “as a general rule, the more resources a charity uses to carry out public policy advocacy activities, the more likely it has a political purpose” and therefore the more likely they are to be de-registered.  In other words, the charitable sector will essentially be where it was prior to the Canada Without Poverty case.

Furthermore, the proposed changes should be altered as follows, so that the legislation defines charitable organizations as:

(a) constituted and operated exclusively for charitable purposes,

(a.1) all the resources of which are devoted to activities carried on by the organization itself to further its charitable purposes including, without limitation, those that engage non-partisan public policy dialogue and development.

I urge you to consider these suggestions to protect Canadians’ free speech.

Thank you,

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