Revenue Canada’s Rules for Fundraising by Registered Charities: the CCA Raises a Red Flag

CCA Bul­letin 30/08

Ottawa, Mon­day, August 26, 2008

Just the Facts

As reported in CCA Bul­letin 28/08, the Canada Rev­enue Agency is seek­ing com­ments on the new draft pol­icy for fundrais­ing activ­i­ties by reg­is­tered char­i­ties and set a dead­line of August 31 for inter­ested par­ties to react.

The Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) has inter­vened today endors­ing  the posi­tions taken by Imag­ine Canada on this issue, but also rais­ing con­cerns about the inclu­sion of the phrase “con­trary to pub­lic pol­icy” in the cri­te­ria for dis­qual­i­fy­ing an orga­ni­za­tion from hav­ing char­i­ta­ble status.

It is the view of the CCA that the inclu­sion of such a term is overly broad and con­fers upon the Canada Rev­enue Agency dis­cre­tion that could be exer­cised in an arbi­trary and prej­u­di­cial man­ner when con­sid­er­ing the activ­i­ties or pro­duc­tions staged by arts and cul­tural orga­ni­za­tions that enjoy reg­is­tered char­i­ta­ble sta­tus or by any other such orga­ni­za­tion in other sec­tors of Cana­dian civil society.

The CCA and all other arts and cul­tural orga­ni­za­tions have no objec­tion to the inclu­sion of ille­gal and crim­i­nal acts as pro­hib­ited behav­iour; how­ever, the sweep­ing and ill-defined nature of “con­trary to pub­lic pol­icy” is not con­so­nant with the spirit of trans­parency and account­abil­ity on the part of gov­ern­ment, a prin­ci­ple which we also sup­port fully.

The inter­pre­ta­tion of the term con­trary to pub­lic pol­icy pro­vided by the Canada Rev­enue Agency does not nar­row the poten­tial for an overly zeal­ous appli­ca­tion of this ter­mi­nol­ogy. The CCA asserts that only behav­iour that vio­lates any ele­ment of the Crim­i­nal Code is suf­fi­cient pro­tec­tion for the free­dom of expres­sion crit­i­cal to the cre­ative process.

What can I do?

If your orga­ni­za­tion is con­cerned with the pro­posed pol­icy, you have only until August 31 to express your opin­ion! You could sup­port and adapt both Imag­ine Canada’s and the CCA’s inter­ven­tions in a sim­ple let­ter sent by fax (613–948-1320), by mail (Char­i­ties Direc­torate, Canada Rev­enue Agency, Ottawa ON K1A 0L5) or by email to consultation-policy-politique@cra-arc.gc.ca. Please make sure to copy us (alain.pineau@ccarts.ca) on your intervention.