By: Sukhdeep Singh Sembi
Following the dissolution, earlier this year, of the political activities audit program, the CRA wishes to receive input from the public in order to modernize the rules regarding political activities for charities.
The process will consist of email submissions and in-person consultations with representatives from the charity sector moderated by an independent facilitator in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary and Vancouver. The dates for the in-person consultations have not yet been finalized but were planned for later this year.
Email submissions can be made by anyone and can speak to any issue of charities’ political activities, but the CRA has identified three important areas they would like feedback on:
- Carrying out political activities
- Are charities generally aware of what the rules are on political activities?
- What issues or challenges do charities encounter with the existing policies on charities’ political activities?
- Do these policies help or hinder charities in advocating for their causes or for the people they serve?
- The CRA’s policy guidance
- Is the CRA’s policy guidance on political activities clear, useful, and complete? For example, how could the CRA improve its policy guidance on these topics:
- The description of a political activity
- The description of a partisan political activity
- Charities’ accountability for their use of resources
- Which formats are the most useful and effective for offering policy guidance on the rules for political activities? For example:
- Two to three minute videos
- Video conferences
- Comprehensive guidance documents like those on the CRA website
- Webinars or other types of presentations delivered by organizations other than the CRA
- Other formats
- Is the CRA’s policy guidance on political activities clear, useful, and complete? For example, how could the CRA improve its policy guidance on these topics:
- Future policy development
- Should changes be made to the rules governing political activities and, if so, what should those changes be?
For those wishing to make submissions time is off the essence, as the CRA will only be accepting comments until Friday November 25th, 2016. The submissions should be sent to: consultation-policy-politique@cra-arc.gc.ca