“Everyone wants new partnerships, new ways of looking at things,” he said. “If it’s code for, ‘We’re getting out of it, and we’re going to let other people deal with it,’ then I think that’s a bit of a problem.”
With the government’s blessing, MPs on the House of Commons finance committee will soon embark on a broad round of hearings on reforming the rules related to charities. Peter Braid, the Kitchener-Waterloo Conservative MP who proposed the study, said he was concerned by the “double whammy” of declining charitable donations and greater need for services because of the recession.
“It’s good conservative philosophy as well,” he said. “It’s not the role of government necessarily to solve all of society’s challenges on its own.”
Mr. Braid won opposition support for what he describes as a non-partisan study, but there is hesitation. Concerns have been expressed that, unless the criteria for charities are tightened, corporations like oil and tobacco companies could end up with more generous tax breaks for contributing to think tanks that support their messages.
MP Peggy Nash of the New Democratic Party said that boosting the credit for charitable giving raises questions about how much government revenue might be lost. Ms. Nash said elected officials could lose their say over what services government supports through tax cuts.
“That’s what I think we need to look at,” she said. “Is this the direction we want to go? Who benefits? Who loses? What does it mean for overall tax revenue?”
Many of the ideas the government is looking at are inspired by a report that was released last December and received little public attention. The 37-page National Task Force on Social Finance contained several recommendations on what Ottawa could do to mobilize “private capital for public good.”
Internal briefing notes obtained by The Globe and Mail under access to information legislation show that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty met with the task force a month before the report’s release. The tone of the notes suggests strong support inside government for moving further in this area.
As a concrete example of social-investment partnerships, Ms. Finley points to Habitat for Humanity. By working with private-sector companies like Home Depot, the low-income housing charity and its volunteers can achieve far more social good than they could otherwise.
“The really successful ones have one thing in common,” she said. “They’ve been developing partnerships with other organizations that really enhance the outcomes for both parties.”
