Tim Harper is a Toronto journalist and author. He spent more than three decades at the Toronto Star as a reporter, Ottawa bureau chief, Washington correspondent, national editor, and national affairs columnist. Tim covered war and revolution in Latin America, upheaval in Russia, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and the rise of Barack Obama in the United States. He covered seven Canadian elections and three American elections. He is co-author, with Alok Mukherjee, of Excessive Force, a study of policing in Toronto, and a contributor to Fish Wrapped: True Confessions from Newsrooms Past, an anthology of life in the golden age of newspapers.
The House of Commons finance committee passed key amendments to the BIA at the end of May, ridding the bill of language described as “‘direction and control’ on steroids.” But a prohibition on “directed giving,” which prevents pooled funding if those funds are solicited for a specific cause, remains.
Canada’s charitable and philanthropic sector won a major victory Monday, May 30, when the House of Commons finance committee voted unanimously to eliminate wording in the budget implementation bill that had been described as “‘direction and control’ on steroids.”
With the government poised to enact legislation that threatens to set back efforts by charities to more easily fund “non-qualified donees,” the sector has mounted a full-throated pushback.
The Liberal government’s move to legislate the “spirit” of private member’s bill S-216 perpetuates the colonial relationship between charities and groups without charitable status, according to leading sector voices.
Bill S-216 would amend the contentious language in the Income Tax Act that requires registered charities to exercise “full direction and control” over their “own activities” when they work with partners that don’t have formal charitable status. In the second part of an ongoing series – exploring a range of views, experiences, and concerns – we examine the concern that the sector may be hiding behind direction-and-control to “mask a more deeply rooted issue in a white-led philanthropic sector.”
Bill S-216 would amend the contentious language in the Income Tax Act that requires registered charities to spend dollars on their “own activities” rather than giving autonomy to organizations whose expertise and experience make them best placed to efficiently use charitable monies.
The final report by the ACCS, which marks the culmination of a year’s work between the sector and the federal government, reveals that many charities “fear” the Canada Revenue Agency.
As Canadians prepared to vote, questions were being asked about whether a risk-averse charitable sector had missed an opportunity to help shape public policy.
