Here is our article 2023 Canadian Federal Budget and its impact on the Canadian charitable sector. Today, Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland introduced Budget 2023—A Made-in-Canada Plan: Strong Middle Class, Affordable Economy, Healthy Future for the Liberal Government of Justin Trudeau.
Highlights of the Budget
Last year’s budget had some major initiatives relating to registered charities including qualifying disbursements, directed donation rules, disbursement quota changes and some additional transparency. This year’s budget does not appear to have any particular initiatives relating to the regulation of non-profits and charities. There is one reference to the word “charity” in a 270-page document. The government seems to be focused on admittedly important topics such as childcare, green energy, food support for low-income Canadians, dental care, Ukraine, etc.
For a charity and non-profit sector which is between 8-12% of the total economy, and which has such great importance in the lives of Canadians, it is a little surprising that it has garnered so little attention. If one is dissatisfied with this result, and I assume some are not, it would be fair to say that there should be some soul-searching about the government relations activities of the sector and the representation by umbrella organizations.
As we have noted before there were many proposals from the Senate and the ACCS that have been ignored by the Liberal government – although some of the proposals would probably cause more harm than good.