Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Chair and members of the committee, good afternoon. I'm Susan Manwaring and I'm here on behalf of the Canadian Association of Gift Planners.
The CAGP is comprised of 1,300 charitable gift planners across Canada who adhere to strict standards of ethics in working with Canadians to generate donations that support that vital sector of our community, the charitable sector. The purpose of the Canadian Association of Gift Planners is to support philanthropy by fostering the development and growth of gift planning. The association creates awareness, provides education, and is an advocate of charitable giving. This activity really helps to strengthen the charitable sector, which helps to strengthen all of the communities in Canada and adds to Canada's competitiveness. It is, in our view, very critical that this sector and the ability to generate charitable giving from average Canadians is very important to the competitiveness of Canada's economy.
This afternoon CAGP wishes to start its presentation with a note of thanks to the government for the introduction and extension of the exemption from tax on gifts of publicly listed securities to registered charities in Canada. CAGP applauds the contribution to the charitable sector and further applauds the contributions to the charitable sector by the government and this committee in recent years through the creation of new tax incentives for gifts as assets by individual taxpayers.
The charitable sector in Canada and the rules that particularly relate to charitable giving and tax incentives for charitable giving have been overhauled and continue to work to increase the charitable giving in Canada to support the sector. CAGP is here today to encourage this committee to continue this support for philanthropy and is recommending, to that end, four additional changes that could be implemented and recommended by this committee.
The first recommendation is a recommendation that CAGP has brought forward to this committee in the past and has been supported by other sector organizations in their briefs before this committee this year. This is asking the committee to recommend that the Department of Finance move forward quickly to implement changes to the Income Tax Act to clarify the laws surrounding the use of what we call a charitable remainder trust as a charitable giving tool. In response to requests from the Department of Finance and the Canada Revenue Agency, the CAGP tabled a proposal with those departments in 2003 that outlines how the charitable remainder trust could be implemented into the Income Tax Act to enhance charitable giving. This is a trust that would allow taxpayers, particularly middle-income taxpayers and donors who want to support the sector, to give property to charity during their lifetime, but it's a remainder interest in the property. They can continue to earn income from the property during their lifetime, but it eventually goes to charity. It is seen as something that would help charitable giving in the country. It would be an incentive to increase charitable giving that would support all of the associations before you today and many of the associations this committee will hear about.
The second recommendation that we have brought forward to the committee is the extension of the nil capital gains inclusion rate for all gifts of real property. This again is an asset. Real property is an asset owned by most Canadians--not all Canadians, as obviously there are many who don't--but it's an asset that can be used for gifts to charity. We applaud and encourage the extension of the nil capital gains inclusion rate to that.
Finally, we support the Philanthropic Foundations Canada's request for the extension of the nil capital gains rate to gifts to private foundations. We believe the abuses that are perceived to be a possibility in that area can be addressed by Philanthropic Foundations Canada's recommendations, and we feel that would be an excellent incentive as well for charitable giving in Canada.
We thank you very much for the opportunity to be heard today.