Federal Finance Committee Recommends Stripping Charitable Status from Religious Organizations
"In its preparation for the annual federal budget, Parliament’s Finance Committee invites Canadians, businesses, and organizations to submit policy requests. The Committee, which is made up of members of Parliament from all parties, then writes a report and makes recommendations – hundreds of them – about what public policy changes should be included in the next federal budget.”
Many of these recommendations are technical and boring. This year, however, the Finance Committee made a recommendation that would have a significant negative impact on the finances of countless Christian charities. Not only did the committee recommend that pro-life organizations be stripped of charitable status (something the government was already actively trying to do), but they also recommended that the federal government exclude the “advancement of religion” as a charitable purpose. This would strip charitable status from every church and potentially many parachurch organizations.
Canadian law allows organizations to apply for charitable status if their main purpose is the relief of poverty, the advancement of education, the advancement of religion, or certain other purposes deemed beneficial to the community. Donations to charitable organizations are eligible for a charitable donation tax credit in which donors receive 15%-33% of their donation back from the government. For example, if you work an average job and you tithe $5000 to your church as a charitable donation, the government will give you $1,422 (approximately 29%) back on your tax return at the end of the year. Overall, the government currently remits about three and a half billion dollars of tax revenue via tax credits to Canadians who donate to charity, and a major portion of charitable donations are given by religious Canadians to religious organizations.
It’s not just donors, churches, and individual charities who would be negatively impacted. Revoking the “advancement of religion” as a charitable purpose would also be economically and socially devastating for the broader society. A study by Cardus, through their Halo project, estimates that for every dollar a religious congregation spends, the broader community receives $3.39 in various benefits, everything from free building space to marriage services to sponsoring refugees. That adds up to approximately $18.2 billion of socio-economic benefit per year!"
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--ARPA (Association for Reformed Political Action) - January 8, 2025
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