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Greetings!

 

Welcome to the April 2011 edition of the Charity Law Insights. 

 

The past month one has been a busy one for the lawyers at Drache Aptowitzer LLP. 
 

On March 22, we published one of the first commentaries on the Federal budget (which has since been defeated). Given the general lack of media coverage on the budget, our analysis has, for many, served as their sole source of information on what was the substantive part of the Federal budget.
  
Following the budget Arthur Drache, Adam Aptowitzer and Yvonne Chenier conducted two charity law sessions in Calgary - both were well received by the community.
  
Adam Aptowitzer presented at the CD Howe conference on March 8th discussing new funding arrangements for charities. Adam was also featured as 'Lawyer of the Week' in The Lawyer's Weekly, a national lawyer publication. The article can be viewed here.
  
As usual, we look forward to your comments on our newsletter.
  
Yours truly,
Drache Aptowitzer LLP


By: Arthur Drache C.M., Q.C. 

The CRA, in answer to a couple of hypothetical situations posed to it sought to explain the impact of major gifts which are transferred between charities.

 

The two factual queries were as follow.

  

A registered charity (the "Donor Charity") plans to gift real property that is used in its charitable activities to another registered charity that is a related charitable foundation (the "Recipient Charity").  The value of the real property is $10 million. 

 

For more information click here: http://www.drache.ca/articles/charities/cra-deals-with-dq-examples
Electioneering Again
By: Adam Aptowitzer 

As we are now in our fourth federal election in seven years, many charities are likely familiar with the restrictions on participating in political activities. However, given that many charities will be tempted to use this election as an opportunity to lobby against the recent budget proposals some review of the rules is warranted.

Ding Dong C-470 is Dead

While many Canadians are bemoaning the onset of another election (the fourth in seven years), the charity sector is overjoyed. As it turns out, the opposition parties in their eagerness to defeat the Conservative party did unintentionally what they could not be convinced to do directly. The result is that bill C-470 has died on the order paper and would have to be re-introduced in the next Parliament to become law. 

Spring Cleaning
By: Yvonne Chenier 
  
Yvonne Chenier

There has been much written about the pending changes for certain federally incorporated entities as we wait for the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act (the CNCA ) to come into force and become law. This has perhaps been delayed but not cancelled by the upcoming federal election.   The message that is being broadcast loud and clear by all who practice in the tax and charity law area is that corporations incorporated under Part II of the Canada Corporations Act and most Canadian Special Act Corporations should make plans today to undertake a comprehensive review of their governance structure in preparation for the requirements of the CNCA. 

  

 
For more information click here:
http://www.drache.ca/articles/charities/springcleaning
Two Steps Forward One Step Back
Implementing the CNFPCA
By: Joel Secter
  

Joel SecterThere have been two noteworthy developments since writing about the draft regulations to the Canada Not-for-Profit Corporations Act (the "CNCA") in our February newsletter: the first is the falling of the government and the second is the 'pre-publication' of the Canada Not-for-Profit Corporations Regulations (the "Regulations"). As the law will not be enacted until the Regulations are finalized, and in turn the Regulations will not be finalized until the new Minister of Industry signs off on them, it will likely be several more months before the CNCA becomes law.
  
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Drache Aptowitzer LLP
Ottawa
226 MacLaren Street
Ottawa, Ontario K2P 0L6 
T. 613.237.3300  F. 613.237.2786

Calgary
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Calgary, AB T2P 3N4

T. 403.536.7442  F. 403.800.3094