A new parliamentary committee report makes two very troubling recommendations: to remove charitable status on the basis of religion and to no longer providing charitable status to anti-abortion organizations.
What the committee recommended
The Finance Committee
report was tabled in the House of Commons on Dec. 13, 2024. Among its hundreds of recommendations, it recommends that the Government of Canada:
Recommendation 429
No longer provide charitable status to anti-abortion organizations.
Recommendation 430
Amend the Income Tax Act to provide a definition of a charity which would remove the privileged status of “advancement of religion” as a charitable purpose.
The committee is making recommendations to the government about what to include in the next federal budget. As part of its pre-budget consultations, the committee heard from dozens of witnesses throughout the fall – businesses, schools, non-profits with a wide range of interests and proposals. It also received hundreds of written submissions.
The wording of these recommendations echoes the BC Humanist Association’s
written submission to the committee.
In the chapter’s short preamble, before the committee's list of recommendations to the government, the report states, “Tax policy is also a major mechanism to motivate taxpayers to engage in activities that are deemed beneficial to society or, on the contrary, dissuade taxpayers from engaging in activities that are thought to be harmful to society.”
Why this matters
This report makes recommendations to the finance minister. This would be a preliminary step before legislation. It recommends what should be in the budget bill. The Finance Minister is not required to adopt these changes in the budget.
However, it is significant that a parliamentary committee has made these recommendations. It indicates that members of the committee, from all the major political parties, supported this idea. The
Conservative Party has a dissenting opinion in the report, and the
NDP and the
Bloc Quebecois have supplementary opinions, but none mention or oppose these charitable status recommendations in the main report. These recommendations may have been overlooked among the 462 recommendations made, but none of the parties expressed opposition to them.
This change, if adopted, would have a far-reaching and devastating impact - on religious charities, the people they serve, and Canadian society. Just over 40% of Canada’s registered charities advance religion. This proposal would destabilize the charitable sector in Canada.
Committee recommendations can function as a trial balloon. If a recommendation seems widely supported, or at least not opposed, it may encourage the government to move ahead with it.
This is an important time to ensure MPs hear the concerns of Canadians about this proposal, now that the Finance Committee has put it on the table. It’s more effective to prevent these recommendations from being introduced in a bill than to ask for them to be removed once the bill has been introduced.
How to respond
The finance department will be working on the budget now in order to introduce it in the spring. MPs are in their riding until the end of January.
This is a critical moment to contact your local MP. Ask your MP to support the charitable sector; specifically to support keeping advancing religion as a charitable purpose and to oppose removing charitable status on the basis of beliefs.
Write, call and/or meet with
your local MP to share your concerns. Contact your MP in more than one way to increase the impact, e.g. write
and call. Go with a few others to meet with your MP, as a small group of constituents. Ask your MP to share your concerns with caucus and the party leader. See the EFC’s
Civic Engagement Kit for more tips on communicating with your MP.
You may also wish to write to the finance minister at:
The Honourable Dominic LeBlanc
Minister of Finance
Department of Finance Canada
90 Elgin Street
Ottawa, ON K1A 0G5
For points to consider and as a sample communication, see the EFC’s letter to the finance minister in response to the committee report. The EFC pointed out the critical need for religious charities, especially in our current cultural climate:
More and more Canadians are grappling with loneliness and social isolation. Polarization and lack of social cohesion are increasing concerns. This is a time to encourage the presence and participation of religious charities, which foster hope, mutual support and belonging, rather than taking steps to destabilize them.
For more background, see the EFC’s description of the ways religious charities benefit Canadian society in a
submission to a special Senate committee.
An earlier
EFC letter to the finance minister explained our concerns and the impact of politicizing charitable status by removing charitable status on the basis of beliefs about abortion.
And remember to pray for our elected representatives, speaking to them with grace, respect and humility, as we keep our eyes fixed on Christ, the founder and perfecter of our faith.