Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 6th, 2010

[Elaine Ménard]

Mr. Chair, I'll attempt to answer the question.

The Canada Corporations Act is an act in existence presently; it has been in existence for a number of years. There are two parts to it. It's the second part that deals with the not-for-profit corporations act. However, the new Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act will come into force in the spring of next year, 2011. I think that is the act to turn to.

That act will have a system similar to the Canada Business Corporations Act, with the idea of members being like shareholders. Members will have the ability to be very involved in the corporation itself. I don't know what else to say, but it really is a federally incorporated body that will be incorporated under the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act with all the rights and responsibilities under that act.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

One thing is, and it comes back to timing a little bit and why things have started so early in the proces—and maybe you could talk a little bit about this—that the body would actually come into force sometime in the spring of 2011. Maybe you could join the two: the preliminary work that's being done now with the completion of that work in the spring of 2011.

[Sandra Harder]

I would just say that the end of the period for submission of applications is the end of December. Then, as we've said, there would be a committee struck to examine those proposals. Our expectation is that then a recommendation would go forward to the minister. That would be the start of the actual designation process. Spring 2011 is the kind of timeframe we're operating with, but it may be subject to change.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I don't hear any bells yet, but the clocks say 5:30, which concludes this meeting.

I want to thank the four of you for coming and making your presentation and answering our questions. Thank you very much.

This meeting is adjourned.