Canadian Charity Law

The Canadian Charity Law Association is delivering some upcoming webinars.  Registration is free but space is limited. Topics are subject to change. 

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The case of Markou v. The Queen, 2018 TCC 66 (CanLII) in the Tax Court of Canada dealt with a leveraged donation program called “Donation Program for Medical Science and Technology”- what CRA used to refer to as an "abusive charity gifting donation scheme".  The TCC determined that there was no donative intent and no gift.

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The Charities Directorate of the CRA appears to be making further changes to their website.   It moved in 2017 to the main Canada.ca Federal government website. Now I noticed their A-Z index of topics is now searchable.  I think this new functionality is very helpful. I had commented on how helpful this list is in the past and having it be searchable is even more helpful.  Hopefully, CRA will continue working on the searchable list to make it more relevant and easier for people to find information.

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Here is an article I recently wrote entitled Top Canadian Charity Law Issues for Charity Village.  It highlights some of the top compliance issues that a Canadian charity should be concerned with.   

As a charity lawyer, I spend a lot of time using the internet to access databases and information on non-profit and charity issues.  Here are Some of my favourite Canadian charity bookmarks.  Hopefully it is helpful.  

There are over 2.5m pages on the Government of Canada's website and only a few thousand deal with registered charities.   Here are some tips on finding information on registered charities.  However, keep in mind that information and legal advice are two very different matters - if the issue is important and involves potentially large consequences consider obtaining professional legal advice from a lawyer who is very knowledgeable about non-profits and charities and consequently probably spends most of their time practicing in the narrow confines of charity and non-profit law.  

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Here is the form TP-985.22.G-V - Donees Required to File an Information Return (Revenu Québec) which certain organizations that carry on activities in Quebec must file.

​Corporations Canada has announced that they will be introducing a new chat service.  It will be available on April 12, 2018 and it will allow people to contact Corporations Canada by an online chat facility instead of by phone or email etc.  You will be able to find it on their "Contact Us" page.   

Here is a CRA document we recently received through the ATIP system List of Registered Charities that filed 2010 T3010 and answered yes for political activities as of February 2012.  

I am looking forward to delivering a presentation next week in Winnipeg on Canadian Charities Conducting Foreign Activities: Compliance Requirements.  I will discuss the rules for foreign activities but also some recent developments involving CRA.   

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Here is a CRA document we recently received through the ATIP system Redacted lists of registered charities audited by CRA under the political activities program. 

There is another Federal Court of Appeal case dealing with the test for having the courts delay the publication of a notice of intention to revoke by CRA.  It is called Ahlul-Bayt Centre, Ottawa v. Canada (National Revenue).  In September 2017 the CRA advised the  Ahlul-Bayt Centre in Ottawa of its intention to revoke their charity status.  CRA wanted the revocation to take place within 30 days.   The Centre wanted to stop the publication of the notice of intention to revoke until much later citing the irreparable harm that would be caused by loss of charitable status.  The Court decided "Taken as a whole, the evidence is in our view insufficient to establish irreparable harm."  The Court dismissed the application.  This case shows that it is difficult to show "irreparable harm" to delay revocation. 

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Here is our article CRA releases information on Universities Outside Canada - good news for foreign universities.  This will be of interest to universities outside of Canada whether they are prescribed foreign universities or not.   

Here is a CRA document we recently received through the ATIP system CRA internal PowerPoint to Audit Team conducting political activity audits.  

Here is a CRA document we recently received through the ATIP system CRA Audit Plans and procedures for political activity audits

Understanding legal compliance for registered charities is not easy but Blumbergs is offering 3 exciting new upcoming events in 2018 that will help.   

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CRA has been sending this insert in various mailings reminding Canadian registered charities that the new move to electronic filing of charity applications and the optional ability to file T3010s online is starting in November 2018.  Charities should start to prepare to use the new facility by setting up a MyBA account if they don't have one already.   Charities can already use the MyBA for limited purposes such as changing their address online.   

As you probably know if you are interested in a Federal corporation (non-profit or otherwise) you can easily search the Corporations Canada website.  This gives you lots of information on Federal non-profit corporations including the name, Corporation Number, Status, which corporate legislation governs, their registered office address, names and addresses of directors, the minimum and maximum number of directors, the last filing date of a corporation, whether filings are overdue, the history of the corporate names, as well as what corporate documents have been filed like Articles, By-laws, Financial Statements etc.   You could always request copies of documents and Corporations Canada was quite efficient in returning them within a day or two.   However, now Corporations Canada has made it even easier for you by making many of the listed documents available instantly. 

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We are adding some exciting new functionality with CharityData.ca   First, it is easy to see what gifts a Canadian registered charity gives to another Canadian registered charity on the CRA website.  But what if you want to know which charities gave funds to a particular charity?  Now you can do this on CharityData.ca by looking under the "Fundraising" tab.   Second, we are going to be updating the data used on the site to include all 2016 data and some 2017 data.  Third, we have added a number of new ways to search or sort all charities on the "Advanced Charity Search Page" Page.  There are now about 30 ways to filter or search.  Here is some more information on Charitydata.ca:

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Here is a CRA document we recently received through the ATIP system Posting New Content on the CRA's Charities and Giving web pages.  If you are wondering how difficult it is for the Charities Directorate to even post the simplest information this chart will help.  The short answer - it is difficult.  While bloggers can put up information in minutes the CRA system can take months, years and even decades to get a document published online.  I am still waiting for CRA to release their guidance on religion, the first consultation draft was done about 9 years ago!     

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Here is a CRA document we recently received through the ATIP system Compliance Framework for Files with Identified Political Activities.  It explains how political activity audit files are identified by CRA, screening criteria used, and different types of audits that may be used depending on the screening finding.  CRA even has a cool infographic on sources and screening - ok it was from 2012 and they have gotten a lot better since then.   

Here is a CRA document we recently received through the ATIP system What type of charities were audited by CRA under the political activity program. It shows as of February 2014 with 31 charities being audited in terms of the 4 heads of charity how CRA divided up the political activity audits.

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David Sherman, a very knowledgeable and respected Canadian tax writer and practitioner, had expressed a concern that the changes in the 2018 Federal Budget that were meant to have simplified the system for recognizing prescribed foreign universities may have the unintended consequence of not including all foreign prescribed universities that were currently on the list.  Today Finance released the Legislative Proposals Notice of Ways and Means Motions and Explanatory Notes.  In it they make certain additional changes to ensure that there is no question that all the foreign prescribed universities that were on the list will be recognized.   

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Blumbergs has created the largest Canadian registered charity information portal at www.charitydata.ca with up to 13 years information on every Canadian registered charity. We have just added additional ways to sort data at www.charitydata.ca.  You can search by name, BN, Program, Charity Type, Revenue, Province and City.  

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Here is a heavily redacted memorandum to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau from the Privy Council Office (PCO) on the political activities audits.  The memo was dated March 28, 2017.

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