Evidence of meeting #56 for Finance in the 41st Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was organizations.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Chair, Association of Fundraising Professionals
I don't see any disadvantages to using mobile giving. In fact we recently completed a study on fundraising practices and found that the vast majority of organizations use up to eight different methodologies to raise money.
The reality is that people give in different ways. Some people like to give over the phone, some people like to give to somebody at the door, some people like to text, and some people like to do online giving through—
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
It's just because my time is limited that I'm interrupting you, but do you know how many of the charities your organization represents might be using mobile?
Chair, Association of Fundraising Professionals
I think the number would be very low because it's so new, but it is catching on.
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
Right. Great ideas are found at the finance committee on the Hill.
Mr. Charters, is your organization using it?
President and Chief Executive Officer, CanadaHelps
We deliver online transactional capacity which, in many cases, people are accessing through online devices. They're accessing the Internet wherever it may be, whether it's in their pocket, or it's a wire line, or it's at Starbucks. We're finding people are using our service through wireless services, through access to the Internet. We actually believe that's the way more and more people will be going. I think what we're talking about is more about transactional capacity.
President and Chief Executive Officer, CanadaHelps
That's something we believe in. We've tried to enable as many ways as possible for people to transact online, through credit cards, debit, PayPal, securities, and more.
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
I get that. You're focusing away from what I wanted to know, which is why you are or aren't using this service.
President and Chief Executive Officer, CanadaHelps
Well, we are. We're not using this service because our service is built based on the Internet. We believe that's going to be delivered through mobile technology no matter what. It's part of that. It's part and parcel of how people will give.
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
All right. Very good.
Ms. MacKenzie, when I was growing up, my parents couldn't afford to pay for lessons for five kids on the incomes they had. My community club actually would provide free classes to my brothers and sisters and me, if my parents coached hockey, and that kind of thing. This is an idea. I keep waiting for someone to bring something like this forward. We're missing opportunities because the stretch credit has some problems, which we've discussed multiple times in this venue, which is why I'm going to try not to repeat myself.
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
If you have any suggestions like that rather than just analyzing and studying, even after this is done, we would be very interested in hearing your out-of-the-box ideas, because we are looking for multiple ways of perhaps addressing this. I leave that with you, hoping that you take us up on that offer. Sometimes the best ideas come on a whim.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Volunteer Canada
That's a good point. There are lots of ways to look at engaging volunteers in more innovative ways in fundraising activities for organizations.
NDP
Hoang Mai NDP Brossard—La Prairie, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'd like to say that I disagree with Ms. Glover. I find that what we heard today was very interesting and different from what we heard in the past. I agree with Ms. Glover, nonetheless, that what Mr. Patrick has brought forward in terms of mobile giving is new. Also, what Mr. Charters brought forward is pretty new. I read that they are also known as the Google of giving. We're talking mobile. We're talking about the Internet. So it's something that's very new. Also, what Ms. MacKenzie said about volunteerism, I think was very interesting.
I would remind Ms. Glover that the motion that was brought forward by your party was regarding tax incentives for charitable donations. So we have to talk about tax incentives, and what we've heard from most of the people who are talking about that issue is that the stretch tax credit is one way to go. We've heard also about other incentives. We have to remember that the focus of the study that you have brought forth was regarding tax incentives. That's why we have people here. It just happens that a lot of people agree with our position, which is to put forward the stretch tax credit. I'll just move forward on that one.
Mr. Charters, you said that government cuts end up on the backs of charities. Could you expand more on that in terms of which types of charities are now suffering or having more problems?
President and Chief Executive Officer, CanadaHelps
Absolutely. I don't have an exhaustive list, but we're seeing things such as mental health issues that have been picked up by organizations in the non-profit sector when governments have cut. This may be provincial governments, but still it's where services have been pulled out of the public system and organizations in the non-profit sector have picked them up. We've already heard that food bank use picks up when employment insurance does not cover the cost. Even with paid employment, people continue to access those services. Those services continue to grow, unfortunately, when they were supposed to be temporary measures.
We heard a lot during the recession from places like Windsor, Ontario, where, as people were losing their jobs, career counselling, employment counselling and social services in terms of domestic violence, etc. increased. That may not be the same as government cutbacks, but we saw organizations struggle with both reduced revenues and an increase in demand for those services. If those services aren't provided through government agencies, then we do see the non-profit sector attempting to pick up the slack.
NDP
Hoang Mai NDP Brossard—La Prairie, QC
I would also like to remind Ms. Glover that we had Mr. Howlett, who was talking about how things were done in Quebec, which was pretty different from what you heard.
Maybe I will go back to Mr. Howlett. Thanks to Mr. Adler for pointing out that you are allowed to talk about political activities.
Can you tell us more about why you'd be in support, or maybe expand on what the government can do in order to make it more equitable
for the charitable organizations.
Coordinator, Canadians for Tax Fairness
It's important to realize that according to a Statistics Canada study done a few years ago, only 46% of donors stated that they or someone else claimed a tax credit for their charitable donations. So it would seem that less than half of those who are actually giving charitable donations worry about the tax credit.
I think we've also heard from the other witnesses that one of the problems in Canada is that as a percentage, fewer and fewer people are actually making donations. So I think that what would really help is to give incentives to people to be first-time givers or to step up. That is why I think increasing the credit at the lowest level, such as Quebec has done at 20%, and making it fair, would in fact create a greater incentive for people who may not think it's worthwhile worrying about keeping their receipt when it's only 15%. But if it were 20%, even on the first donation, that might encourage people to give more. It would make it fairer to make it an across-the-board credit.
That's a new idea that I would suggest you study and to look at how that operates in Quebec as compared to the rest of Canada.
NDP
Hoang Mai NDP Brossard—La Prairie, QC
Regarding the budget, there is $8 million put forward to attack charitable organizations, which represent less than 1% of them, more or less. Do you think it's money well spent?
Coordinator, Canadians for Tax Fairness
No, I don't think that's a big problem. The biggest problem is that so few charities are doing advocacy work. That is the problem I think needs to be addressed.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I just want to say in response to my colleague Ms. Glover's comments that I fully support the notion of being able to donate time in lieu of fees.
I have two boys in hockey. Shelley, if you could just get me permission from the whip, I would stay home all next winter and coach hockey. I promise I'll pair off with somebody from the NDP for voting, and it would be absolutely fantastic. All kidding aside, I think that's a great notion.
Ms. MacKenzie, a couple of weeks ago we had a national volunteer week. We had an excellent opportunity as members of Parliament to be out in our constituencies thanking the many volunteers who do such great work in our various communities. It's absolutely fantastic been done. Things are noticed in the community and people act on them with passion to make a difference in Canadians' lives.
I noticed in your testimony that you talked a bit about the difference between something like the volunteer firefighter tax credit and how other tax credits might be applied to the charitable sector, and the volunteer sector as well. People who sometimes feel the need to give might not have the financial capacity to do so, but they have the talent and time which they can give in lieu of money. I want to know more about your organization's perception of the value of things like time and talent versus the treasure component and how the Government of Canada could better recognize those aspects of time and talent.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Volunteer Canada
Certainly with 46% of the population donating their time as volunteers to the 161,000 charities and non-profit organizations in the country, volunteers are a significant component of the labour force for organizations. Organizations rely on volunteers and any mechanism to maximize the contribution of volunteers would be very important to organizations.
We do a lot of work to build the capacity of organizations to be responsive to the trends in volunteering so that they can continue to access volunteers, based on what volunteers are looking for. As an example, the long-term picture of volunteering is the hospital auxiliary volunteer contributing a tremendous number of hours every Wednesday for 35 years. That type of volunteer is increasingly a volunteer of the past. Volunteers now want to contribute in a more episodic fashion. They want to contribute their skills, in many cases, to be leveraged effectively by an organization to contribute directly to its mission. So we support organizations to be able to respond to some of those trends.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
That's fantastic. It's absolutely amazing how much talent and time people do put into this. I find that most of the people in the communities I represent don't just volunteer for one organization. It seems like in every community you have the core volunteers who volunteer in three or four organizations.
Ms. McManus, I'm just going to ask a question of you. I think I have enough time for one more question.
I was elected in 2006. After the first budget when we were here, we changed the policy for gifts from shares and stocks, and things of that nature. The Lacombe & District Historical Society had a mortgage on its blacksmith museum that was paid off in full the very first year after that tax policy was changed, because a generous donor who saw fit to make that donation through that method was able to help that particular society do so.
Are there any other anecdotes like this that you could provide to this committee? If we were going to strengthen charitable donations and giving, we must go to the people who have the resources to be able to do so. We can get the time and talent from the local community. We're going to get the treasure from those who have it. I think this is an excellent strategy going forward. Do you have anything else to offer the committee that would encourage us to move in that direction?
Chair, Association of Fundraising Professionals
I would reiterate my earlier anecdotal comment about the United Way of Calgary and the immediate effect that the elimination of capital gains had on its campaign. It reached its goal in a much shorter period of time.
Up until late 2008, gifts of securities were very significant, and of growing significance, for most charitable organizations. We had a levelling off, or a decline, of course, when the value of the stocks went down.
The rationale for using privately held securities is simply that we have seen such a growth in private family philanthropy in Canada. One of the single largest areas of new charities is private family foundations. A lot of the assets that go into these are privately held securities.
