Finance committee  I think that when Trevor was referring to the concerns expressed by organizations—that they would lose their status if they carried on a bit too much political activity—he was describing the previous state of affairs. What the current amendments do with respect to non-partisan po

Finance committee  I think the intent of the provisions, or the retroactive nature of the provisions, is to provide some fairness to organizations that were audited and have been determined to be offside in terms of political activity rules so that they have the ability to benefit from this change

Finance committee  Yes. There's no change to that portion of that rule. It is currently the case that the CRA is responsible for determining whether or not an organization provided direct or indirect support to a political party or a candidate for public office. This doesn't change that. I would s

Finance committee  I wouldn't want to predetermine how the CRA is going to interpret what an activity in furtherance of a charitable purpose is, but I would say that if an organization is advocating for a change in law or policy that has been determined to be in furtherance of a charitable purpose,

Finance committee  What I would say is, again, this is a pre-existing provision, so we're not changing that restriction. We're not adding the word “indirect.” This is a very good question and a very good point. These amendments follow the recommendations of the panel on political activities by char

Finance committee  As I said, the guidance is relatively short, but I'll provide what they have.

Finance committee  I'll try to clarify the existing state of affairs and speak a bit more about the example that you've just raised. Under the current rules and under charity law, there are two types of political activities. There's the non-partisan type of political activity, which would be the s

Finance committee  I would say that currently there isn't comprehensive guidance on what that means. The CRA does have a document that speaks to issues like, obviously, financially supporting a political party or calling for—

Finance committee  May I answer you in English?

Finance committee  I just want to clarify what these amendments actually do. Currently, the requirements of the Income Tax Act are that a charitable organization or foundation must spend at least 90% of their resources on charitable activities and can devote, by virtue of that, up to 10% of their

Environment committee  I don't know if we've gone that far. Certainly, in the studies in the U.S., because the credit only applies at the federal level to income-producing properties, they only look at that. They also look at the downstream effects—the economic activity after the building has been plac

Environment committee  Absolutely. That's a fair statement. In addition to the state credits in most of the studies we looked at, they also mentioned the fact that other federal credits apply. There's a low-income housing credit and a new markets tax credit. It's a bit of a dog's breakfast.

Environment committee  We were a little uncertain about that when we were doing our initial evaluation. This morning, Mr. Van Loan said that's what the intent of the bill would be, that it would only apply to that additional amount, so I think you're correct.

Environment committee  You're correct and I agree with the statement that it would encourage individuals and businesses to place their properties on the register. There's no doubt about that. That potentially increases the cost of the bill. It was mentioned earlier that there are 13,000 properties cu

Environment committee  I'll just chime in. We're not experts on grant programs, but in terms of our concerns on the tax side, certainly a grant program would respond to a number of concerns in terms of controlling costs. We are concerned about the costs. If you look to the experience down in the U.S.,