How engaged are Canadian registered charities in this election?

I was asked the question “How engaged are Canadian registered charities in this election?” by a journalist and to be honest, I had to say I have no idea.  There seems to be a big disconnect between the words spoken by charities about the importance of being engaged in the political process and the actual implementation.    I looked at the Third Party registrations for the 2021 Federal elections and not many of the groups are registered charities.  It appears about 6 charities are currently registered.    I know the election is not over yet but still, it is late in the game.   Unfortunately, CRA is no longer asking any questions on the T3010 annual relating to political activities or PPDDAs.  So it is going to be harder to have any sense of the involvement of charities in political activities.

While one can do political activities that don’t require third-party registration, a group is quite limited during times of elections and sometimes for an extensive period before then, if you are not registered.   CRA has made it clear that registered charities could be registered under for example the Canada Elections Act as a third party and although there are some things that non-profits can do as third parties that registered charities cannot there is still lots that a registered charity can do.

Here are the registered Third-Party groups as of yesterday.   I have put in bold ones that I think are registered charities.  Let me know if I missed any.