Finance committee  If you look at some of those numbers and break them down, I think you'll probably see that the largest amount came from the donation of shares. Maybe flow-through shares in Fort McMurray might be a big one. That was a special type of combining a double incentive that would encour

Finance committee  Again, I would refer back to the situation that existed prior to the complete elimination of tax when publicly listed securities are donated to charity. Prior to that, in fact, if I recall correctly, it was a reduced tax on the donation rather than a complete elimination. So if I

Finance committee  If I may, I think there's an easy and obvious answer to your question. Certainly there's a way to distinguish it. Instead of completely removing the tax on the donation of real estate, reduce it. Instead of to zero, reduce it to something less than that. This was the situation

Finance committee  Just very briefly, I would like to point out that the donation of a principal residence has the exact same tax treatment as what's being proposed here. Principal residences are owned by people all over this country, and yet we don't see a major impact on the donation of the ecolo

Finance committee  If I might add briefly, one of the additional points in my presentation was raising the limit for the charitable donation amount, the extent to which you obtain credits, from 75% to 100%. The purpose, really, behind that is that social enterprise—social enterprise as distinct fr

Finance committee  Thank you very much for asking that question. I work with Arthur Drache. Arthur Drache was the gentleman who drafted many of the original proposals that are under examination today--the legislative provisions, that is. I asked him if there is any reason why the deadline is Decem

Finance committee  Yes, it could wait.

Finance committee  First of all, I recognize this suggestion. I think there's a lot of compassion and a lot of sense in the suggestion. I think where it falls down is in some of the technicalities. I deal with charities all the time, and plenty of churches have food banks and soup kitchens. What r

Finance committee  If I may add, I've spent some time thinking about this issue as well. First of all, it's very attractive to say that a charity will be able to engage in business activities in order to either accomplish its objectives or to increase its revenue. But losses and funding and what ha

Finance committee  I think the sector would be grateful if you would. As Mr. Burrows was saying, it's a very important topic in the sector right now, and if some guidance came from the committee and there were the opportunity to give submissions, I think most people would be very happy with that.

Finance committee  Fundamentally, the answer is in Hansard of the 1930s. It was too politically sensitive a topic, so they left it to be decided by common law. Unfortunately, over the past 30-odd years, the evolution of common law in the area has stopped. So we are left with law that is quite old a

Finance committee  Yes, if I may, part of the issue with corporations giving, especially publicly listed corporations, is a fundamental philosophical discussion about how appropriate it is for corporations to be giving away revenue that would otherwise go to the shareholders. It might be that no ma

Finance committee  First of all, I recognize and I think you're bang on when you say there's a certain symmetry between the charity issue and the securities regulator issue. I think the difference is between a federal regulator and a national regulator. A national regulator involving all the provin

Finance committee  That's right, and in fairness--

Finance committee  Yes, it sounds funny, but--