We’ve been following Canadian Senator Ratna Omidvar’s efforts to change Income Tax Act legislation around requirements for charities that have ended up restricting their ability to give funding to non-charities whose work they support. The bill is now in third reading in the Senate. Here’s a post on the Rabble website on what these proposed changes are all about.
This is a particularly big issue for charitable foundations, as many Indigenous organizations and cultural organizations are not registered charities, and the language in the Act requires charities to be so directive in such funding as to be acting as if the whole program or service belonged to them. Not a great approach in a time of ending colonial ways!
At issue is how the CRA interpret’s a charity’s “own activities,” notes this post, which had input from Pacific Legal Education and Outreach Society’s Martha Ranns.
“Not only do these words mandate an approach that is wildly out of step with current accepted practices in international development, which emphasize local control, but these words systemically exclude BIPOC organizations and mandate colonial approaches to charitable work.”
Click here for the recording of the April 8 webinar with Senator Omidvar that PLEO hosted.