Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his review of the discussions that took place at committee. It was very helpful to know the work that went into this stage of the bill.
I want to ask him about some of the things that were not there, the concerns of the voluntary sector. One thing we often heard from voluntary sector people was that they had no opposition to being accountable and transparent in how they were operating their agencies. However, they were concerned about having the skills to do that kind of financial accountability, to get the support for the required financial management. Did the committee have any discussion on that?
Concerns were also raised about some of the complications around advocacy work. Many of the agencies saw this as important, but limitations were placed on their ability to do that. There were complications with the so-called 10% rule of activity that could go into political or advocacy kinds of work.
Concerns were also raised about the complications of establishing charitable status in the first place, how the process took so much time and the complication of that. Were there any discussions about simplifying that process?
Then there has always been the suggestion that volunteers should receive some kind of tax relief for the work they put into non-profit agencies. Did that issue came up in the committee discussions?