The Blumbergs' Canadian Charity Law Boot Camp will be held again on Monday April 8, 2019. This is a one-day boot camp on compliance and standards issues for Canadian registered charities. You can register for the program here. This one-day workshop…
Finance Minister Morneau delivered the 2019 Federal Budget today. Here is our article “2019 Canadian Federal Budget – How will it affect the Canadian charitable sector?“ Finance has already released a Fall Economic Statement that did contain a number of initiatives…
The Canada Revenue Agency’s (CRA) Charities Directorate is the de facto regulator of Registered Charities in Canada and they audit between 600 and 800 charities per year. This article Registered Charities and CRA Charity Audits will help you understand the process…
The SNC-Lavalin affair has been in the news for a while. Here is an article on how this SNC-Lavalin scandal relates to the charity sector.
Global News journalist Stewart Bell recently wrote an article “Government revokes charity status of Canadian Jewish group that supported ‘foreign armed forces’“. The articles discusses the recent revocation of the Canadian registered charity Beth Oloth Charitable Organization. You can see detailed…
The compliance requirements and restrictions on private foundations in Canada are frequently misunderstood, even by those who run large private foundations. Here is our article Fallacies about private foundations in 2019 that might be helpful in dispelling these myths. If you are…
The Charity Commission of England and Wales has significant material to help charities understand the importance of putting in place systems and implementing them to safeguard charity beneficiaries, as well as staff and volunteers. Sometimes the issue is framed in terms…
On Thursday December 13, 2018, Bill C-86 received Royal Assent. Within this Bill, there are several changes to the Income Tax Act related to charities, especially with regards to political activities. The change allows Canadian registered charities to conduct public policy dialogue…
I wrote an article many years ago encouraging informal legal reviews by non-profits and charities. It was called “Canadian nonprofit and charity legal audits: Forget about it!”. Over the past 11 years the world has changed a bit – more…
There have been a number of articles in the media on a Catholic school in Toronto called St. Michael’s College School over the last week and a number of recent incidents involving sexual assault and what the National Post describes as…
Here is the new Canadian Charity Legal Checklist. For those who are interested in reviewing legal compliance for their registered charity they may find the checklist helpful.
The CBC today covered the issue of Canadian pro sports teams and their fundraising charities in “Pro sports charities hoarding cash, overspending on fundraising, watchdog says“. This is a follow on to the coverage by the Toronto Star from 2010. There…
Finance has put out a press release that it will be consulting on the new political activity proposals that were released on Friday. Here is the text of the release: Consulting Canadians on Draft Legislative Proposals Regarding Political Activities of…
On Friday, September 14, 2018 at 5:01PM the Department of Finance released the “Legislative Proposals Notice of Ways and Means Motions” and also the “Explanatory Notes” on their website. We will be commenting on these changes to the Income Tax Act over…
Here is our article Ontario rules change for compensation of certain directors of non-profit corporations that are charities.
Canadian Charities do a lot of great work. But with over 86,000 of them, there may be a few hundred really bad apples amongst the lot and probably thousands of ineffectual charities, there will be times that you will be…
In the Global News article “Priest with string of fraud convictions was allowed to run Ontario charity – until now” it discusses a registered charity run by a priest with a series of criminal convictions and the use of the…
Althia Raj's article “Super PACs In Canada? Liberals Wrestle With Politically-Active Charities After Court Ruling” covers the fallout from the Canada Without Poverty case and provides some important updates. Althia Raj reports: OTTAWA — In an effort to prevent Canadian…
The CRA announced today that they are appealing the CWB decision. This is not surprising as we noted in our blog on July 30, 2018 “Canada Without Poverty vs. AG – a pyrrhic victory for CWP and a disaster for the…
Here is a copy of our Submission to the Federal Finance Committee dated August 1, 2018 for the 2019 Federal Budget. The submission covers transparency of non-profits and registered charities, as well as a number other recommendations to improve the regulation of registered…
Here is my article on the recent CWP v. AG case entitled Canada Without Poverty vs. Attorney General of Canada – a pyrrhic victory for CWP and a disaster for the charity sector. In short, I think it is a bad…
The Canada Without Poverty v. Attorney General of Canada decision was released on July 16th. Here is the decision. I have written extensively about the importance of having Canadian charities engage in some political activities and how the rules can…
Here is our Blumbergs’ Receipting Kit for Canadian registered charities 2018. If you wish to receive updates on the Receipting Kit you should join our Blumbergs email newsletter to receive regular updates on charity compliance issues affecting Canadian registered charities. There is…
The Special Senate Committee on the Charitable Sector has started having meetings and inviting witnesses. We covered the details of the mandate at Senate appoints Special Committee on the Charitable Sector to look at laws and policies and impact Here…