Finance committee  I thank you for your invitation to come and speak to you today on behalf of Philantrophic Foundations Canada of which I am the president. The Philanthropic Foundation of Canada speaks for Canada's independent and family foundations. Our members collectively manage almost $5 bil

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm conscious of the fact that as last witness, I'd better get a move on. I'm sure you want to ask some questions, so I'll be fast. Thank you for your invitation to comment on the tax measures that ensure the prosperity and productivity of residents and

Finance committee  I represent the grant makers, not the fundraisers. My members typically are not in a position to seek gifts from others. Some of my members are certainly involved in the work of the Nature Conservancy, for example, which would very much appreciate, I think, tax incentives for mor

Finance committee  I'll answer that in English. I haven't actually thought about that particular issue. Again, I represent organizations that don't tend to benefit from those kinds of incentives, except in the actual establishment of a foundation. I represent private foundations and some public fo

Finance committee  Mr. Chairman, honourable members, thank you for this opportunity to speak to you today on behalf of my members. I represent Canadian charitable foundations and grant-makers from across the country. Collectively my members manage more than $7.5 billion in charitable assets and d

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. McCallum, for the question. I would not say it was a cookie-cutter model. I'm afraid it would require a certain amount of study. The U.K. actually has now been at it for almost a decade. They started in 2000 with a commission that reviewed various aspects of socia

Finance committee  We're very conscious of the fact that you can't recommend everything and that there have to be priorities. Given the impact of the recession and the urgency of promoting more giving by Canadians, we think that the stretch tax credit would have a greater impact for the average Can

Finance committee  Exactly.

Finance committee  No, I don't think we have an articulated view on that. I represent private funders' foundations, and we are concerned about the overall trend in giving in Canada. The data certainly suggests there are fewer individual givers to charities. Charitable giving in absolute terms is la

Finance committee  The median is about $250.

Finance committee  I guess the challenge is to try to figure out how to get that average up across the country, to get everybody to give a bit more. We would like to have more people giving and we'd like to have more people giving more. The stretch tax credit idea is one that we felt had some possi

Finance committee  I think what is extraordinary about the data on charitable giving is that it's actually the lowest-income people who proportionately give the most of their income. We have every expectation that middle-income Canadians would be generous. They certainly do respond to tax incentive

Finance committee  Thank you very much. Honourable Chair, honourable members, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you on behalf of my members. This is about the sixth time I've come to the committee. I noticed Donald Johnson was saying a couple of weeks ago that he was going to keep on comi

Finance committee  Let me preface my reply by saying that I am not a tax policy expert, thank God. It's necessary, but it's not the kind of thing you want to perhaps spend your career doing--designing tax policy. But it is very important. And on the record I want to say thank you very much for your

Finance committee  No, I think this is unique.