The Department of Finance has put out a press release and backgrounder, which are reproduced below, about a complicated change to the Income Tax Act (“ITA”) relating to registered charities that offer reproductive health services or information or referrals to women. Also, here is the Notice of Ways and Means Motion from Oct 29, 2024, relating to these changes.
You should read these 3 documents from the Federal Government and my comments are below.
Here is the press release:
Government of Canada protecting reproductive freedom and covering essential health care costs
From: Department of Finance Canada
News release
October 29, 2024 – Ottawa, Ontario – Department of Finance Canada
Every woman should be free to make her own decisions about her own body. Every woman in Canada should have access to the health care she needs.
Today, however, concerns have been raised that some registered charities that offer reproductive health services to women, including pregnancy options counselling—and that are provided federal supports under the tax system—may be spreading misinformation by presenting themselves as a neutral, full-service pregnancy support service organization, when they are in fact anti-choice organizations that push women away from accessing the reproductive care of their choice. By concealing the true nature of their services, these organizations, known as crisis pregnancy centres, are restricting the rights of vulnerable pregnant women to choose the reproductive care appropriate to them and their circumstances.
The Honourable Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, alongside the Honourable Marci Ien, Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth, the Honourable Mark Holland, Minister of Health, and the Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Public Services and Procurement and Quebec Lieutenant, today announced new action to protect reproductive freedom and updated on the government’s progress covering the costs of contraception, dental care, and diabetes medications for Canadians.
First, the federal government will introduce legislation to require more transparency from charities providing pregnancy counselling. Specifically, registered charities whose purpose or one of their main activities is to provide pregnancy and reproductive health supports and services, including pregnancy options counselling, would be required to explicitly disclose if they do not provide abortions, birth control, or referrals to these services. Organizations that do not clearly and prominently provide the required transparency risk losing charitable status.
This measure aims to improve the distribution of accurate information in reproductive health care and builds on other measures that the government is taking to improve health care for all Canadians.
Second, the Minister of Health announced that more than 2.7 million Canadians are now covered by the Canadian Dental Care Plan and nearly 1 million of them have already had their dental visits covered. Already, the Canadian Dental Care Plan has covered $732 million in dental expenses for Canadians, or about $730 per covered Canadian this year. The government is on track to cover 9 million Canadians, currently without dental insurance, in 2025.
Third, the Minister of Health highlighted that the Pharmacare Act has received Royal Assent on October 10, 2024. The passage of this legislation enables the federal government to reach agreements with provinces and territories to provide free contraception and diabetes medications. Once agreements are reached, coverage through existing provincial and territorial programs would be enhanced to provide free contraceptives and free life-saving diabetes medications, saving Canadians $300 per year and $1,700 per year, respectively.
Fourth, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance announced that in October, the federal government transferred $4.34 billion for health care to provinces and territories. In 2024-25, Canada Health Transfer payments will total $52.1 billion—equivalent to $1 billion every week. The federal government is providing $200 billion over 10 years for provinces and territories to increase access to family doctors, reduce wait times for surgery, and enable patients and their health care teams to share data.
Quotes
“Today’s action to protect reproductive freedom is about stopping dishonest organizations from restricting a woman’s access to the reproductive care that is best for her. We are ensuring women have better access to the physical and emotional care they need and deserve when making the most personal of decisions. Because cost should never be a barrier for accessing essential health care in Canada, we’re covering the cost of contraception, dental care, and diabetes medications too.”
– The Honourable Chrystia Freeland,
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance“What this bill stands for is simple: For women to have all the facts, to be informed, and to make the choices that are right for her. It’s about holding organizations accountable, making sure they’re transparent in the reproductive health supports they provide—because everyone deserves care they can count on.”
– The Honourable Marci Ien,
Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth“A woman’s right to choose what to do with her body, is hers alone to make without fear or judgement. Today’s announcement is ensuring Canadian women have better access to reproductive health care across the country without judgement or hostility. The federal government will always work to protect reproductive freedom in Canada. Alongside covering the cost of contraceptives and diabetes medications, nearly 1 million Canadians have received oral health care under the Canadian Dental Care Plan—we are ensuring cost is never a barrier and Canadians can access the health care they need and deserve.”
– The Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos,
Minister of Public Services and Procurement“Our government is delivering change that will help millions of Canadians get the healthcare they need while saving them hundreds of dollars of out of pocket costs through initiatives like the Canadian Dental Care Plan and our national Pharmacare plan. For Canadians, that means a healthier life with more money in their pockets.”
– The Honourable Mark Holland,
Minister of HealthQuick facts
- According to the Abortion Rights Coalition, there are about 157 anti-choice crisis pregnancy centres in Canada, of which 90.5 per cent are operated by registered charities.
- To ensure transparency for women accessing their services, legislation would require crisis pregnancy centres to disclose the range of reproductive care offered, specifically if they do not provide abortion services, birth control, or referrals for these services.
- In addition to saving covered Canadians about $730 in dental costs this year, the Canadian Dental Care Plan is reducing oral health related emergency room visits, which cost Canada’s health care system roughly $1.8 billion every year.
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Date modified: 2024-10-29
Here is the backgrounder:
Protecting reproductive freedom by preventing abuse of charitable status
Backgrounder
October 29, 2024
Registered charities are provided federal, as well as provincial or territorial, supports under the tax system that includes an exemption from income tax and the ability to issue official donation receipts for any gifts that they receive. In return, all registered charities are expected to follow the rules and principles set out in the Income Tax Act to ensure that they are operating for charitable purposes and providing activities for the benefit of the public.
Concerns have been raised that some registered charities that offer reproductive health services to women, including pregnancy options counselling, may be spreading misinformation by presenting themselves as neutral, full-service pregnancy support service organizations when they are in fact anti-choice organizations that push women away from accessing the reproductive care of their choice.
By concealing the true nature of their services, these anti-choice organizations are restricting the rights of vulnerable pregnant women to choose the reproductive care appropriate to them and their circumstances.
To address these concerns, the federal government intends to introduce legislation to amend the Income Tax Act and Income Tax Regulations to require registered charities that provide services, advice, or information in respect of the prevention, preservation, or termination of pregnancy to disclose where they do not provide specific services, including abortions or birth control. Disclosure of such information would be required in any form of public communication that advertises these services. This legislation would also require that reproductive health charities explicitly disclose this information on their annual information return, which is publicly available on the website of the Canada Revenue Agency.
In specific terms, if adopted by Parliament, the legislation would require that any registered charity whose purpose or main activity is to provide reproductive health services would be required to disclose where applicable:
- If it does not provide abortion services, it must disclose that it does not provide abortion services;
- If it does not provide abortion services and it does not provide information on abortion services, it must further disclose that it does not provide information on how to obtain such services;
- If it does not provide abortion services and it does not provide the contact information for a provider of such services, it must further disclose that it does not provide the contact information for a provider of such services;
- If it does not provide birth control services or does not provide a range of birth control services, it must disclose whichever case applies;
- If it does not provide birth control services or does not provide a range of birth control services, it must further disclose if it does not provide information on how to obtain a range of birth control services; and,
- If it does not provide birth control services or does not provide a range of birth control services, it must further disclose if it does not provide the contact information for a provider of a range of birth control services or providers that collectively provide such a range of services.
Birth control services in this context would mean services relating to the provision or prescription of medications, devices or medical procedures that aid in the prevention of conception and are recognized in Canada.
Under this legislation, a registered charity that provides reproductive health services would need to disclose if, at a minimum, it does not provide the contact information for an abortion services provider and a birth control service provider.
For the purposes of this legislation, a public communication would generally include any advertisement, such as bus ad, poster, billboard, social media posts, or websites, put out by the charity or on the charity’s behalf, or any other communication aimed at the public, that advertises the information, advice, or services that it provides relating to the prevention, preservation, or termination of pregnancy.
Where a charity fails to meet the requirements specified in the legislation, the Minister of National Revenue would be permitted to revoke its registration.
These changes would come into force 90 days after Royal Assent, with the new information disclosure requirements applying as of the 2025 taxation year.
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Here are my comments:
The Liberals first announced that they were going to focus on crisis pregnancy centres in the party platform in 2021. I noted in 2021:
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 this culture war has been a huge decline in public trust in charities. One of the biggest issues facing Canada today is vaccinations and trying to minimize the impact of COVID-19. When people listen to misinformation on Facebook over proper healthcare advice from registered charities we see the impact of a diminished charity sector, partly hurt by the potshots of the political parties. Why should this election be different? Well, the Liberals have continued the culture war and thrown a hand grenade in their policy platform by making an ambiguous proposal relating to anti-abortion groups and their charitable status.
Now we have more information on the Liberal’s proposal to bring in changes to the ITA for charities relating to crisis pregnancy centres. I should start off by saying that I support the rights of women to have reproductive freedom, including access to abortion and other services if the woman requires those services. Second, I realize that in many places in Canada, there is differential access to health care. If the Federal government wanted to provide funds to increase access to abortion or other services, I would have no problem with that. At least I would be able to see how that would improve access to abortion services in this country. This change seems to be more about politics than helping “vulnerable women”.
They have shoved this announcement about the change in the ITA into a press release relating to a number of healthcare initiatives and updates. It is not clear why they would do that. If you are so proud of these changes, then why not have a press release that only deals with those changes?
No charity should be involved in providing misinformation or disinformation of any kind. If the Liberals wanted to introduce a change to the ITA to be even more explicit about that issue, and it would apply to any misinformation or disinformation provided by a charity, then I would have no problem with that. I don’t actually think that any such change to the ITA is necessary, even though misinformation or disinformation is a significant problem, because the issue is more about enforcement of existing common law and statutory law and not a problem with the law. But if I’m wrong, then certainly introduce a change that makes the dissemination of misinformation or disinformation a reason for revocation.
It is interesting that the Liberals are saying that transparency about a women’s choice and reproductive freedom is important but registered charities providing misinformation or disinformation about vaccines, climate change, Indigenous issues, immigration, elections, etc are not as important I guess. I would nix this proposal completely and have a blanket requirement, if necessary, that no charity should be involved with the dissemination of misinformation or disinformation.
To understand how problematic this change is, we need to understand something about the context of the regulation of registered charities in Canada, including the lack of accountability and lack of transparency of registered charities. I’m an advocate for transparency, but I’m not an advocate for extremely selective transparency, which is more akin to singling out groups that you may not agree with. For example, the Conservatives always like to have transparency when it comes to Indigenous groups, environmental groups and unions but don’t seem to be that interested in other groups. The Liberals following in the same path want greater focus on crisis pregnancy centers, but are not prepared to do much to increase transparency about other charities. It is a very sad state of affairs.
We have 86,000 registered charities in Canada. This initiative will primarily affect about less than 200 registered charities, according to the proponents of this change.
The current context is that we have almost no transparency on nonprofits that are not registered charities that might have revenues of something like $150 billion a year and are not taxed. We have very limited transparency on the 86,000 registered charities with their $340 billion in annual revenue. You can see the submissions I’ve been making for almost 15 years dealing with improving transparency in the charity sector. Here is an example of a submission that we recently made. Blumbergs’ Pre-Budget Submission for the 2025 Canadian Federal Budget. Why are the Liberals not focusing on the lack of transparency and accountability in the whole charity sector and instead focusing on only one narrow issue that may impact less than 1% of the sector?
When it comes to transparency, we are worse off now than we have been in the past. Keep in mind that other countries have dramatically increased the amount of transparency on individual charities. Just take a look at Form 990 in the US or the charity filings with the Charity Commission of England and Wales to have an idea of how far behind we are. Having additional information on these 200 or so groups in the T3010 is hardly going to be a big win for transparency in the charity sector. The cost of education on these questions, adding those questions to the T3010, and trying to capture that information will probably be millions of dollars and it is a giant lost opportunity to have better information on the whole charity sector.
Here is just one example of how bad transparency is when it comes to Canadian registered charities. It used to be that Canadian registered charities who did political activities would describe their political activities and say how much of their funds they spent on political activities, etc. At the moment, there are zero questions in the ten pages of the T3010 that cover political activities. We know that one of the quickest ways to create suspicion of groups is to have dark money related to political activities be used by those groups. It is, therefore, just one example where we have absolutely no visibility.
What is even sadder about this initiative is that there is a good chance that the Liberals will not even be in government next year, and I would not be surprised if the Conservatives were to repeal these changes quickly. It will be very hard for the Liberals to complain about selective and questionable initiatives that the Conservatives bring in when the Liberals have brought in this initiative.
I do feel slightly sorry for the junior people at the Department of Finance who were tasked with preparing language for this questionable ITA change.
The Backgrounder refers to the need for all charities to be “operating for charitable purposes and providing activities for the benefit of the public.” I agree with that. If the proposal was focused on all charities that operated outside their charitable purposes or did not have a public benefit, then I would say that is great – but this proposal is seemingly focused on a concern about 200 charities. We have provided a number of suggestions as to how to increase charities operating within their purposes and increase public benefit, but there does not seem to be any interest in those topics. Some simple examples would be to have all purposes of all charities listed on the CRA’s Charities Listing. This would be helpful because many charities don’t even know what their purposes are, and if they did see their purposes, they may be quite horrified at the dated language. Also, many charities do not explicitly focus on public benefit because there is no requirement to say anything about it in their T3010 filings. Why not have a box on the T3010 in which a charity can, in a paragraph or two, try to explain what they see as their public benefit? It would at least force them to think about it once a year!
The Liberals did not appear to be so committed to this proposal, and hence, we have waited 3 years to find out more about it. Hopefully, this change to the ITA will be dropped, and there will be a real attempt to improve transparency in the charity sector.