Charities bring valuable perspectives to public discourse
through their services to Canadians and interactions with the most
vulnerable. These experiences are vital for the creation of public
policy that builds strong communities, and ideally, charities would
be fully engaged in public debate and ongoing dialogue with
policymakers. However, much of this has been frustrated by a
convoluted legal and administrative framework governing charities
and the extent to which they may become involved at all.
The recent Report of the Consultation Panel on the Political
Activities of Charities (the "Report")
supported the ability of charities to engage in public policy
dialogue and development activities ("PPDDA") to support
their charitable purposes. The Federal Government adopted these
recommendations in Bill C-86, Budget Implementation Act,
2018, No. 2, which received Royal Assent on December 13, 2018. The
resulting amendments to the Income Tax Act (Canada) (the
"ITA") are
