The Advisory Committee on the Charitable Sector (ACCS) was launched in 2019 by the Minister of National Revenue, then the Hon. Diane Lebouthillier. Its establishment was a direct result of the government’s efforts to respond to the recommendations of the Report of the Consultation Panel on the Political Activities of Charities. The goal was that the ACCS would be a permanent forum for the government to engage meaningfully with the sector and for the sector to provide recommendations to advance emerging sectoral issues, a seemingly mutually beneficial relationship for both parties. Furthermore, the work of the ACCS was expected to lead to a strengthened relationship between the CRA and the sector. In the 2018 Fall economic statement, ACCS was allocated a generous budget to the tune of $4.9m in new funding over 2018-19 to 2023-24.
Today, it continues to be an important consultative forum for the Minister and the commissioner of Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) through the Charities Directorate, which directly manages the affairs of the ACCS. Among other responsibilities, the Charities Directorate reviews applications for charitable registration for organizations and private and public foundations, as well as supporting the CRA’s role in combating the financing of terrorism in support of the Charities Registration (Security Information) Act.
ACCS’s membership is made up of representatives from the CRA, the Department of Finance Canada, and the charitable sector. The co-chair leadership model means that the agenda is essentially driven by both the sector leaders and the CRA. Arriving at a consensus among such a diverse and passionate group is not easy and a significant amount of time is often spent finding the middle ground. The co-chairs need to carefully engage in a delicate dance to appease all parties. When it finally does find consensus, the ACCS unfortunately comes up against what I consider the greatest barrier in advancing its own purpose: the functional and legal limitations of the Charities Directorate. At a moment in time when the charitable sector and, indeed, Canadian society are evolving at an incredibly fast pace and dealing with complex and compounding issues of racism, gender inequities, and climate change, among other urgent issues, the Charities Directorate is simply not equipped to engage effectively in these issues.
Legally, the Charities Directorate has its hands tied when it comes to effectively advancing any issues requiring legislative changes or amendments to the Income Tax Act. The foremost frustration with the present Canadian charity law is that it has hardly evolved since 1601. The charitable purposes, for instance, are rigid and not at all reflective of today’s sector priorities. Each ACCS report published, since its inception, has discussed this issue in various ways, from calling for modernization of the definition of charity to recommending an expansion of charitable purposes. The most recent ACCS working group on definition of charity and charitable purposes conducted an impressive comparative analysis of provincial and international legal practices on charities. While insightful, the research neither advances the issue nor creates a pathway to legally resolve it. Now in its sixth year, it is becoming obvious that it is highly unlikely that the ACCS forum can advance this issue in a tangible and meaningful way for the sector.
Besides the legal limitations, the Charities Directorate is limited in its capacity to address some priority sector issues due to budget and mandate constraints. The ACCS was given an open mandate to make recommendations that advance emerging sector issues but this does not exactly match with the mandate or priority of the Charities Directorate. Members can raise as many sector issues of concern as possible but the CRA will only address those that are within its mandate and in clear alignment with its own priorities. Like any other government department, the Charities Directorate has its own objectives and goals that must be met and prioritized. So, the ACCS can be seen as one way of helping the Directorate work through those while achieving the best possible outcomes for the sector. This is a role that the ACCS has embraced well and generously dedicated time to.
The point of friction eventually occurs when there’s misalignment between what the sector deems as a priority issue to address, through the ACCS, and what the Directorate sees as a priority. There are issues raised by sector members that had to be dropped because there was no interest or capacity on the side of the CRA to engage. One such issue was the work of advancing advocacy for a home in government. While the CRA sees value in the work and its relevance to the health of the sector, this issue is squarely outside the scope of its work. Progress in this area would require engaging with several government departments. While the sector members were prepared to put in the hard work, without the backing of the CRA, the ACCS could not move forward with it.
It is no surprise that the Charities Directorate runs on a tight budget. The government does not regard the charitable sector as highly as the private sector despite its heavy reliance on the sector to deliver important social and nation-building services from healthcare to housing for seniors, from youth mental health to addressing gender-based violence and providing other critical services. To date, the ACCS has published four reports with recommendations on a wide range of important issues that require urgent action. The Directorate cannot, in most cases, address more than a few issues at a time due to limited human resources capacity and budget. Change is slow within government, but it’s incredibly slow if a government department has a limited budget and is constantly being required to prioritize and reprioritize its work to survive.
In my tenure, we probably spent the first year figuring out how to effectively advance sector issues within the Directorate’s limited scope, budget, and slow pace of effecting change. As a passionate sector leader who wants to see tangible results on sector issues before it’s too late, that felt too long and was discouraging. The ACCS is simply not set up to succeed in either strengthening the relationship between the sector and the CRA or in advancing long-standing and emergent sector issues. This is not to fault the CRA but to say that there needs to be a rethinking about whether this is the place to achieve these goals.
I would be remiss if I did not comment on the power dynamics around the ACCS table. I remember early in my tenure, someone in my network asked me how I managed to join the “big boys club” – referring to the ACCS. I was surprised and embarrassed at the same time, for I would never willingly join such a club if it existed. I was too stunned to offer a thoughtful response, but I’ve often pondered over it, and I now appreciate such a call out on the ACCS. Around the table, one will see diverse representation, but what takes time to uncover is the power dynamics at play. There is an over-representation of white-led, well-established organizations. The presence of Imagine Canada, Philanthropic Foundations of Canada, and Vancouver Foundation – all of whom collectively represent most of the white-led nonprofits, charities, and private foundations, and therefore their interests – cannot be overlooked. Over the existence of the ACCS, leaders closely affiliated with all three organizations have been appointed by the Minister as co-chairs. Also not to be overlooked is the fact that at the same table is only one Indigenous organization and only one Black-led and serving organization. It doesn’t count as representation if there’s only one of us at the table in a room of white sector leaders with significant power and influence in the sector and within government. Within a colonial settler structure, which the ACCS is, it matters who and how many are in the room.
The charitable and philanthropic sector is at a moment of reckoning with its history of colonialism, racism and capitalism. There needs to be courageous conversations happening at this influential level within government and that centre the change needed to meet the demands of the time. Can this be possible if the majority of the voices represented continue to benefit from the status quo? Allies, no matter how well-informed, cannot replace the voices of those impacted by the injustices perpetrated by systems of colonization. The government, through the ACCS, is only starting to understand the inequities that exist in the charitable and social impact sector. Creating room for more representation that reflects the sector, and the communities served by charities, is critical. This might mean increasing the number of sector members and perhaps reviewing the recruitment process if ACCS is to become what we all need it to be in this moment.
Minnie Njeri Karanja (she/her/elle) has more than a decade’s experience working in the charitable and international development sector. She served on the ACCS from Oct. 2021 to Dec. 2024. She lives in the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations), otherwise known as Vancouver in British Columbia.
She has several roles in the sector as:
Connect with her on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/minniekaranja
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