Here is the Blumbergs’ Pre-Budget Submission for the 2025 Canadian Federal Budget. For those who have been following our law firm’s submissions over the last ten or more years, they have focused on transparency and accountability in the non-profit and charity sector.Pre-Budget Submission – BPC 2025 Federal Budget
Unfortunately, we have less transparency today than we had 15 years ago. Both the Conservative and Liberal Federal governments have whittled away at transparency in the non-profit and charity sector. We are finally seeing a small start at a reversal. CRA has incorporated some more questions on the T3010 about restricted gifts and disbursement quota. But these are very minor in the big picture. Also the Finance Department may be looking at the transparency of non-profit organizations.
We have not learned enough from the multitude of scandals in the non-profit and charity sector that those who abuse the system are adept at taking advantage of weaknesses in the rules and enforcement as well as blind spots in transparency. If you are a normal person, you probably don’t pay much attention to non-profit and charity regulations or what exactly is available publicly or not and when information will become publicly available and how.
But I promise you that there are some people who are very well aware of our system and how to game it. As we have noted elsewhere, even if CRA, which regulates registered charities, finds out that a charity is abusing the system, it typically takes 10-15 years for the public to know that. Think of all the money donated over that 10-15 year period to the organization that perhaps would not have been donated if the public knew. Think of all the government agencies, who typically have very little skills and training in due diligence on grantees, and how much funding was provided to that organization that would not have been provided. Think of the poor governance that is allowed to continue. Think of the beneficiaries who in some cases were abused or just did not receive the assistance they were supposed to receive.
Interest in transparency ebbs and flows. If we only knew how much lack of transparency costs our country, we would be more interested. The Australian government last year proposed a number of changes to ‘lift the veil of secrecy’ on Australian charities. We are already far behind the Australians and with these changes we will be even further behind. We are even further behind the US and England. It’s not a great place to be, and it’s not surprising that public confidence in the charity sector in Canada is very low.
We need more transparency in the non-profit and charity sector, and we need it now!
If you or your organization is interested in filing a pre-budget submissions for the 2025 budget with the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance (FINA) keep in mind that the deadline for filings is August 2, 2024.