The Liberals have recently released their Liberal Party Platform-Forward-For-Everyone. The Liberals and Conservatives have always played a culture war game at the expense of the charity sector. Whether it’s political activities of environmental charities, abortion, etc. The cost of…
We recently reviewed the T3010 Registered Charity Information Return database for 2019 as part of the Sean Blumberg Transparency Project. The database covers about 83,892 of the approximately 86,000 registered charities in Canada that had filed their T3010 and were…
Here is the Blumbergs’ Snapshot of the Ontario Charity Sector 2019. We recently reviewed the T3010 Registered Charity Information Return database for 2019 as part of the Sean Blumberg Transparency Project and focussed on the T3010s of Ontario registered charities. …
Here is the Blumbergs’ Canadian Charity Sector Snapshot 2019. We recently reviewed the T3010 Registered Charity Information Return database for 2019 as part of the Sean Blumberg Transparency Project. The database covers about 83,892 of the approximately 86,000 registered charities…
The Conservatives have put forward some proposals in their platform that are unclear and could have a significant negative effect on the charity sector, especially larger charities such as universities, hospitals, international development and environmental organizations. Here are the proposals…
The Conservative party has just released their platform and they have committed to increasing the disbursement quota from the current 3.5% to 7.5%. The Liberal government is currently undergoing a consultation on whether the disbursement quota should be left at…
It took many years but finally, it looks like new Ontario Not-For-Profit Corporations Act (ONCA) and the Ontario Business Registry will be launched on October 19, 2021. We will have more on this at our upcoming Blumbergs’ Charity Law Institute…
Yesterday it was announced that the 2021 Federal election will be held on September 20, 2021. Charities and non-profits need to pay attention to the rules that could apply to them including under the Income Tax Act, Third-party election advertising,…
Many Canadian registered charities have March 31 year ends. Mostly these are aligned with government funders who have a similar year-end. These March 31 registered charities need to ensure that they can accurately file their T3010 by September 30.…
In the 2021 Federal Budget, it was announced that the Department of Finance will be doing a consultation on the disbursement quota and whether it should be raised. Interesting that the title used by Finance is “Consultation: Boosting charitable spending…
Here is the Blumbergs’ Submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance for the Pre-Budget Consultations in Advance of the Upcoming 2022 Federal Budget. We offer 11 recommendations namely the following: List of Recommendations Primary Recommendations Recommendation…
In this excellent article by Steven Ayer, he writes that confidence in the charity sector has fallen considerably over the last two decades. The article “Confidence in charity leaders has fallen sharply over the last two decades – what does…
With respect to a recent bill passed by the Senate, but not the House of Commons, relating to structured arrangements/direction and control we have prepared the following blog posts with our concerns about the bill and its ultimate impact. …
The Standing Committee on Finance (FINA) has launched its annual Pre-Budget Consultations for the 2022 Federal budget. If you wish to make a written submission you can do so on the FINA website. All submissions need to be submitted by…
It has been over 2 years since CRA has been offering CRA My Business Account (MyBA) for charities. There are a large number of transactions that can be completed on the CRA MyBA and it is often quicker to do…
I recently took a look at the CRA Charities Listing for groups that were revoked as a result of audit and there were 14 groups listed as revoked as a result of audit: Showing 1 to 14 of 14…
So the rumour mill says that the Liberals may call a Federal election in August. Hopefully, we will not have the misinformation about charities and elections as we saw in 2019. Essentially, if you are a registered charity there are…
A few weeks ago a Canadian registered charity called the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) was involved in a scandal when it was discovered that its president had hired a private investigator to surveil the Chief-Justice of Manitoba who…
Corporations Canada has made it easier for Alberta non-profit corporations under the Societies Act (Alberta) and New Brunswick non-profits under the Companies Act that wish to move to the Federal Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act (“CNCA”). They have also made it…
I recently received this note from the Ontario Government when I signed up for a mailing list relating to the new Ontario Business Registry (OBR) which will replace the ONBIS. The OBR will be launched at the same time as…
We have created a new online course, Should Our Canadian Business Establish a Corporate Foundation? This course will discuss when it may be advantageous for a Canadian business to launch a corporate foundation. Whether you are a large bank, small…
I was in a session with the Ontario government today related to user feedback for the new Ontario Business Registry (OBR). In that session, they advised that the new Ontario Not-For-Profit Corporations Act (ONCA) is targetted now to come in…
The CNCA came into force in 2011. It is a really good corporate act that is being used by thousands of Canadian non-profits and charities. The Federal government is launching a consultation on the CNCA and our firm will probably…
A number of regulations for the new Ontario Not-For-Profit Corporations Act (ONCA) have been published today in the Ontario Gazette. This raises the question of whether ONCA will come into force on July 1, 2021? It is possible but impossible…