March 11, 2011
The Mowat Centre recommends new processes for federal-provincial regulations on non-profits.
Federal-Provincial Misalignment is Hurting the Non Profit Sector
Mowat Centre Research Calls for New Processes
Toronto – New research released today by the University of Toronto’s Mowat Centre for Policy Innovation has found that while Canadian governments have made significant efforts over the past two decades to strengthen the pan-Canadian economic union as well as the social union, no similar effort has been expended on the third pillar of the Canadian union – the non-profit sector.
The Mowat Centre study Strengthening the Third Pillar of the Canadian Union: An Intergovernmental Agenda for Canada’s Charities and Non-Profits recommends policy changes that would ease current overlap and conflicting provincial and federal regulatory barriers to revenue-generation in the non-profit sector.
“The sector is facing enormous sustainability challenges,” says Elizabeth Mulholland, one of the authors of the study.
“Dealing with federal-provincial approaches that are sometimes contradictory and often impose a heavy administrative burden on the sector needs to be an urgent priority.”
The report recommends that the federal and provincial/territorial governments should establish a formal intergovernmental process to coordinate their policies and approaches to the sector.
It also recommends that provinces and territories should establish their own process to harmonize rules and regulations affecting the sector, similar to the processes they have established to facilitate greater labour mobility between provinces.
“The Canada Revenue Agency and guidelines in the Income Tax Act need to be made more flexible so that charities and non-profits have more avenues to generate revenue for social purposes. At a time when governments have less money, we need to ensure that groups working in communities have opportunities to be entrepreneurial,” says Matthew Mendelsohn, Director of the Mowat Centre.
“Federal rules shouldn’t undermine provincial strategies for the sector,” he adds.
Read the full report
