Human Resources committee  I would just add that, because the charities directorate works so closely with registered charities in particular, we do have mechanisms in place to ensure ongoing consultation and engagement with them, and we do it in a variety of ways. We have a working group with representati

Human Resources committee  Yes, I can take that question. Thank you very much. There are 86,000 registered charities in Canada today, more or less. In order to be registered as a charity in Canada, you have to meet a few requirements. First, you have to have exclusively charitable purposes. Charitable p

Human Resources committee  Thank you for the question. Of course, I can't speak about specific cases because of the confidentiality provisions of the Income Tax Act, but I am happy to speak generally about the rules. I think the starting point has to be that there are a number of different ways in which

Human Resources committee  I can begin answering the question. There are actually a number of things that charities can do currently within the existing framework by working with partners that are not registered charities that might be non-profit organizations, or that might be businesses. That's what I r

Human Resources committee  Charities have to abide by a rather specific framework. Before accepting them and registering them as charities in Canada, we are required by law to ensure that they pursue activities for charitable purposes that are recognized by the courts. As you said, we are talking here abou

Human Resources committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. My name is Cathy Hawara and I am the Director General of the Charities Directorate within the Canada Revenue Agency. As my finance colleague explained, it is their role to write the rules that support the government’s tax policy agenda. It is th

Finance committee  I appreciate the question. I don't think that we need more staff at the moment. First of all, we have to see whether those situations correspond to the provisions of the act in terms of our discretionary power to impose a penalty. We always have that discretionary power. So we a

Finance committee  I believe the answer to the question on non-cash gifts is that it is every year. It's reported for each fiscal year. With respect to greater disclosure on compensation, we always look at the form and see what can be done. There are significant system costs associated with the fo

Finance committee  According to the information at my disposal, there has been no increase in complaints. Have we revoked registrations of organizations for engaging in political activities to an unreasonable degree? Actually, in recent years, no registrations have been revoked for those reasons.

Finance committee  Yes, that was one of the recommendations that was made to us. So we have established a procedures manual. The report also indicated that, if an infraction is subject to a sanction or penalty and the decision is not to impose the sanction, the auditor should justify that decision.

Finance committee  I would like to make a clarification. I do not believe I mentioned a lack of staff. Now, there are some difficulties with receipts and with the fact that we have no automated system. But it is fair to say that we do have enough staff. In the auditor general's report, she made th

Finance committee  Unfortunately, I don't even have a rough estimate that I could share with the committee. There are a number of areas within the agency that would be impacted, and a full cost estimate would need to be undertaken. To give the committee a sense of it, there would definitely be sys

Finance committee  We do maintain close relationships with certain countries, and I'm not aware of any of them having implemented something similar. I don't know whether the Department of Finance has anything they want to add on that particular question.

Finance committee  That is what happens when we decide that the charity can have access to every recourse available under the act. However, in certain circumstances, if we are particularly concerned about the charity's activities, the legislation enables us to revoke the registered status 30 days a

Finance committee  We proceed with the revocation after 30 days, unless the charity is able to obtain a court order preventing us from doing so, which hasn't happened yet.