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House Hansard - 56

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 8, 2022 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 56 - Apr/8/22
Mr. Philip Lawrence (Northumberland—Peterborough South, CPC)
Mr. Speaker, I want to talk specifically about an area of the budget with respect to a private member's bill, Bill S-216. Bill S-216 is a piece of legislation that seeks to remove the archaic “own activities test”. The budget said that it wanted to have the spirit of Bill S-216 brought into effect. First, will these changes be made in the Budget Implementation Act? Second, a big part of Bill S-216 is removing the “own activities test”. This is an archaic provision that forces Canadian charities to directly supervise the behaviour of other organizations they may choose to partner with. This is particularly challenging in areas that have had a long history of government misuse, such as indigenous charities and otherwise. Because of that, they often have mistrust. It is almost colonial or patriarchal in scope for Canadian charities to have to take over. To sum up quickly, will the changes appear in the BIA, and will the “own activities test” be removed?
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Context: House Hansard - 56 - Apr/8/22
Mr. Philip Lawrence (Northumberland—Peterborough South, CPC)
Mr. Speaker, my question will again be directed toward the potential implementation of the spirit of Bill S-216, as included in the budget act. As we have seen, the existing charitable law, or the transfer between charities and non-qualified donees or non-charities, is extremely archaic. In fact, some would say it is colonial in structure, which makes it very difficult for charities to have the right type of operation. For example, if a charity wants to give money to an overseas project, it cannot, as it is physically impossible for it to oversee every single judgment. Bill S-216 was put in place to make sure those tactical decisions could stay on the ground while there was still lots of accountability. The challenge is in the budget document, and I have a quote from a professional in the field. He says the examples of accountability requirements set out in budget 2022 are extremely detailed, highly prescriptive and operational in nature, which will make things extremely challenging if this is implemented in this method. We want to make sure that charities are, of course, accountable and transparent to their donors, but we also want to make sure that charities have sufficient autonomy to do their work to help people, particularly in the indigenous context. Unfortunately, indigenous people have been mistreated by governments since the very beginning of our country, and some of this has been quite egregious, including the residential schools. Instead of adopting a colonial method, why would we not give charities more autonomy, as in Bill S-216?
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