Posts Tagged 'Canada Revenue Agency'

CIVIL SOCIETY’S ROLE IN INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

CIVIL SOCIETY’S ROLE IN INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Le français suit.

Blog by Stéphanie Bacher, December 7, 2016

Civil society is under attack. That is the main conclusion from the most recent report published by the international alliance CIVICUS on the state of civil society in the world. In many countries, whether authoritarian or democratic, a series of obstacles threaten civil society and hinder its ability to promote international development and basic human rights. In Canada, for example, the budgets of several international development organizations were drastically reduced in ...

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BRASS TAX, BRASS KNUCKLES: CRA and the Political Activity of Canadian Charities

BRASS TAX, BRASS KNUCKLES: CRA and the Political Activity of Canadian Charities

McLeod Group Blog by Ian Smillie, November 7, 2016

The discussion about Canadian charities tax law and ‘political activities’ has become hopelessly confused in obtuse and badly outdated definitions and interpretations of the words ‘charity’, ‘political’, ‘purpose’ and ‘activity’. It has become especially confused where international development organizations are concerned, because the underlying preconditions for change in developing countries often lie within the realms of rights—basic human rights, workers’ rights, women’s rights, children’s rights, prisoners’ rights—and in issues of good governance, ...

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Foreign Funding Charity Shock Sensation

Foreign Funding Charity Shock Sensation

The Harper government set tongues a-wagging and jaws a-dropping when it started attacking Canadian charities for accepting donations from other countries. The row began in 2012 when Joe Oliver, then Natural Resources Minister, accused ‘environmental and other radical groups’ of taking money from ‘foreign special interest groups’ in order to influence hearings about a possible tar sands-to-BC pipeline. Environment Minister Peter Kent said that ‘There has also been concern that some Canadian charitable agencies have been used to launder ...

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Inconvenient Charities

McLeod Group Blog, January 26, 2015

What do birdwatchers in the Kitchener-Waterloo Field Naturalists Club and human rights activists in Amnesty International have in common? Well, they are Canadian charities and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) seems to have all of them in their sights for their political activities.

Shortly after the bird watchers wrote a letter to two federal cabinet ministers complaining about government-approved chemicals that damage bee colonies, they received a letter from CRA objecting to political material on the ...

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Slip Sliding Away Democracy and the Silencing of Civil Society Organizations

McLeod Group Blog, April 12, 2014

It may come as a surprise to many Canadians who follow global civil society issues to learn that Canada chairs the Community of Democracies’ Working Group on Enabling and Protecting Civil Society, a group that believes,

An active, pluralistic civil society is an essential ingredient of a vibrant democratic political system. Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) are the primary vehicles through which people organize themselves to promote shared objectives and values and to convey their interests. ...

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Slip Sliding Away: Democracy and the Silencing of Civil Society Organizations

McLeod Group Blog, April 9, 2014

It may come as a surprise to many Canadians who follow global civil society issues to learn that Canada chairs the Community of Democracies’ Working Group on Enabling and Protecting Civil Society, a group that believes,

“An active, pluralistic civil society is an essential ingredient of a vibrant democratic political system. Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) are the primary vehicles through which people organize themselves to promote shared objectives and values and to convey their interests. ...

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