Special Report: The Senate Wades into Charity Policy

Just months after Ottawa set up an advisory body to look at the future of Canadian charities, a Senate committee this week released a 190-page report with a sweeping range of legal and policy reforms that, its members say, are necessary to ensure the health of a sector that generates 7% of Canada’s economic activity.

The report is the latest sign that the federal government has begun to focus its attention on a sprawling tax-exempt sector that still operates under a regulatory regime last overhauled the year before Justin Trudeau’s father first became prime minister.

In the past two years, the federal Liberals have earmarked hundreds of millions in matching funds for environmental causes and relaxed rules governing how much charities can spend on political advocacy campaigns.

While the 42 recommendations in the Senate report address everything from the promotion of volunteerism to better use of tax courts, the capstone of the study is a call for the federal government to take charity policy out of the hands of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), which administers the Income Tax Act and has served as the sector’s de facto oversight body for many decades.

“There are so many issues that need to be dealt with,” says Terry Mercer, a Nova Scotia Liberal who chaired the committee and had a lengthy career in the charitable sector before being named to the Senate. “CRA is not the right place.”

Click here to read the full article on the Philanthropist’s website.

Click here to read the Senate’s report, “Catalyst for Change: A Roadmap for a Stronger Charitable Sector”.