Bill S-216 Could Make it Possible to Support More People in Need | MP Marie-Hélène Gaudreau
On May 16, 2022 MP Marie-Hélène Gaudreau spoke in support of Senator Omidvar’s Bill S-216, the Effective and Accountable Charities Act. Watch her speech:
Ms. Marie-Hélène Gaudreau (Laurentides—Labelle, BQ): Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill S-216, which seeks to amend the Income Tax Act.
I will begin by saying that the Bloc Québécois is in favour of this bill, which eases the fiscal framework for non-profit organizations, or NPOs. For the benefit of those listening in today, I will say that the bill relaxes certain fiscal measures for charitable organizations. Essentially, it amends the Income Tax Act to allow charities to provide their resources to a person who is not a qualified donee, provided that they take reasonable steps to ensure those resources are used exclusively for a charitable purpose.
This will enable them to enter into fairer and more effective partnerships with non-charitable organizations while maintaining accountability and transparency. Introduced a year ago, Bill S-216 is meant to resolve certain issues charities face within the current tax framework. I sincerely hope that it will be passed to help service providers in need.
Before I was elected in 2019, I worked for several years at the Corporation de développement communautaire des Hautes-Laurentides, an umbrella organization for most non-profits in the Antoine-Laurentides RCM. Many of them called themselves charities, non-profit organizations or social economy organizations, but they all had a common goal: to improve the quality of life of the less fortunate. Unfortunately, depending on their sources of income from fundraisers, donations or grants, they were concerned about the quality of their own services because of a shortage of workers. These organizations are obviously also affected by the labour shortage.
I witnessed a situation where an NPO needed a full-time employee simply to fill out applications for assistance for various programs and to report and ensure accountability, which I think is a little counterproductive when the real needs are on the intervention and response front. These organizations are constantly required to review their services. As I mentioned earlier, we need to remember that the services provided by these NPOs are offered precisely because public services are inadequate. That makes them invaluable.
As long as poverty exists, as long as governments fail to invest enough in our more vulnerable citizens, and as long as these invaluable responders are committed to helping the most vulnerable under conditions that are far from competitive, we will need to help them.
The management of the crisis made these organizations even more vulnerable. The demand for additional services increased during the pandemic, and NPOs had a very difficult time handling the situation. Their own volunteers were impacted by the lockdowns. I am thinking in particular of people aged 70 and over who had to isolate rather than provide community services. More than 73% of organizations saw their number of volunteers drop. I was there with them every week, at crisis cell meetings on Zoom. I am very grateful for Zoom, which enabled me to watch them perform miracles with so few resources. I would like to thank them. They played a key role in raising awareness about the harmful effects of the measures put in place for certain groups people and in pointing out the blind spots in the government’s response to the crisis.
The role of these organizations, which was already essential, become even more important during the pandemic. According to the Réseau québécois de l’action communautaire autonome, or RQ-ACA, three-quarters of all community organizations in Quebec witnessed a significant increase in the need for psychological support and assistance, basic needs such as food and housing, and the need for referral to other resources.
It is difficult for me to hear from my former colleagues in the Quebec network of community development corporations that no fewer than 3,000 organizations are facing this challenge. Workers in the sector are on the verge of burnout. A vast majority of these organizations are beset by fatigue and burnout, like all of us, with the few resources they have. Three-quarters of these organizations are still having trouble retaining staff right now, while four out of five have difficulty filling vacant positions. The needs have not changed, people are still obviously vulnerable.
We can agree that non-profit organizations, or NPOs, are an extremely important component of our social safety net. Governments must support them and facilitate their work, while ensuring they are accountable. That is what I was saying earlier. I extend my sincerest gratitude to these organizations, in particular those in the riding of Laurentides—Labelle. I thank them for their kindness, their generosity and their love.
I would like to point out that, by the end of 2020, barely half of these organizations had been able to obtain public financial assistance. While several of them benefited from programs, this bill will help ease the administrative burden caused by the programs’ complexity, as I alluded to earlier.
I must mention that, fortunately, certain programs were implemented, such as the Canada emergency wage subsidy. There are also sources of funding such as emergency federal support for organizations working with the homeless and the emergency community support fund available through the United Way, the Red Cross and community foundations.
However, according to survey data from the Institut de recherche et d’informations socio-économiques, by late 2020, half of these organizations had not received any of the subsidies intended to support the economy during the first wave.
Having seen and experienced the challenges of poverty from the inside, before I became a member of Parliament, I can say that our organizations have difficulty getting funding because their mission requires their workers to fill out forms and ensure accountability. All of the motions introduced in the House to ease, better define or facilitate mutual financial assistance among organizations will be gratefully welcomed by us.
Lastly, I would like to take a moment to explain to people what Bill S-216 is. It seeks to modify the definitions of “charitable activities” and to remove the requirement that activities must be related to the charitable organization’s purpose, allowing an organization to transfer funds to other organizations not recognized as charities. This is a much more flexible framework, and we are pleased with it. In order to ensure accountability, the bill requires that a charitable organization show reasonable diligence with respect to the organizations it plans to collaborate with.
In short, the Bloc Québécois believes that this modernization of the current framework will facilitate the work of NPOs, which can then provide their services more efficiently. Ultimately, Bill S-216 could make it possible to support more people in need.