Religion in Canada, eh?

Government treatment of religious charities

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The Canada Revenue Agency and religious charities:

Both for-profit and non-profit organizations, can register with their federal or provincial/territorial government. Those who sell goods register with the federal government for a business number and General Sales Tax (GST) number. They also register with their provincial or territorial government to handle the Retail Sales Tax (RST) on their sales within their province or territory.

Some non-profit groups can also apply to receive charitable status, after having been registered for two years. Charities are exempt from the need to pay income tax, although their employees must still pay tax as individuals. They can issue official receipts for income tax purposes so that Canadian donors can reduce their own income tax.

There are over 80,000 charities in Canada of many types. To become a registered charity, a non-profit organization must meet additional requirements. They must perform a function that is beneficial to the public. All of its purposes must fall into one or more of four pigeon-holes: relief of poverty, advancement of education, advancement of religion, or "other purposes that benefit the community in a way that the law says is charitable." ₁

Charitable status is impossible to obtain in Canada by the group that sponsors this website -- the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. We could only qualify if we taught belief in a single specific faith or religion. That would be an impossible requirement to meet, since we describe and promote tolerance for the full range of faith groups.

The website of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) states:

"It is a charitable purpose for an organization to teach the religious tenets, doctrines, practices, or culture associated with a specific faith or religion. The religious beliefs or practices must not be subversive or immoral."

"Teaching ethics or morals is not enough to qualify as a charity in the advancement-of-religion category. For example, a Web site that states the opinions of an individual or group about what they think is right or wrong does not qualify as advancement of religion. There has to be a spiritual element to the teachings, and the religious activities have to serve the public good." ₂

This regulation places the Government of Canada in the awkward position of determining which beliefs and practices are immoral, and which are to be considered spiritual. Teaching hatred of homosexuals and/or homosexuality, or that same-sex couples should be denied the right to marry, or unequal rights for males and females is apparently not immoral, because we have never heard of a church's charitable status being terminated on these grounds.

Surprisingly, the Government appears to have violated its own rules concerning eligibility. In previous years, a charitable religious group had to teach belief in the existence of one or more deities. Any number would do, of any gender; a single God, a single Goddess, combinations of Gods and Goddesses, etc. Yet the CRA regularly recognized Buddhist groups as charities, even though most Buddhist traditions do not recognize a deity. They also recognized Unitarian fellowships and churches, although membership in those groups does not require belief in a deity. In fact, most Canadian Unitarians would probably define themselves as Humanists. Presumably the Government registered these non-conforming groups because they are perceived by the public as religions, and because they have a long history in Canada.

Conflict between the government and MM Outreach:

News of a conflict between MM Outreach -- formerly called MacGregor Ministries -- and the Government of Canada surfaced in 2008-FEB.

MacGregor Ministries was founded by Lorri and Keith MacGregor in 1979. They are a counter-cult organization. Its prime focus is on Christian faith groups that it considers to have deviated from historical Protestant Christianity.

The 2006 Saint Louis Conference on Biblical Discernment described them as:

"... a Canadian countercult discernment ministry. They have researched, written, and co-produced eight videos dealing with Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh-day Adventists, and the counterfeit Christianity found in some Churches. They also have written and produced numerous booklets, tracts, and audio tapes on the subject of the cults and aberrant Christianity. They have a quarterly magazine, as well as maintain two web sites with information on the cults. They are now known as MM Outreach, in partnership with Media Ministries. ₃

Counter-cult groups generally view themselves as conducting an outreach to help persons that they feel are trapped in Christian cults. The MMO group, for example, states on their website:

"If you are a member of any of the groups we have listed we will dialogue with you in total confidentiality. We believe if you have the right Jesus Christ, you are right for all eternity. But if you have the wrong Jesus Christ then you are wrong for all eternity."

This seems to imply that if a person has beliefs about Jesus that are significantly different from MM Outreach's beliefs, then she or he will spend eternity in Hell.

Many groups on the receiving end of such outreach generally view themselves as being aggressively attacked by counter-cult groups, and would prefer that the "outreach" be discontinued.

The government allegedly decided that counter-cult ministries do not perform charitable work in Canada. MMO claims that they were told to change their message to say that all faith groups are equal; they were to stop publishing a magazine on religious cults, remove their two web sites from the Internet, and stop selling certain products. We cannot verify the accuracy of these statements because of privacy laws.

MMO has set up a non-profit organization in the U.S. Unfortunately, if a registered charity in Canada is either de-registered or disbanded, the CRA requires that all assets -- equipment, stock, savings, library, etc. -- must be donated to another charity or taxed. Their rationale is that assets of charities are held as a public trust and cannot be used to benefit an individual.

One path forward for MMO might be to affiliate themselves with an existing registered religious organization and combine their activities. Alternately, they could simply continue business as a non-profit and non-charitable group. The Government of Canada is not trying to shut them down, as has been claimed by some evangelicals; they are only withdrawing their charitable status.

Frank Pastore interviewed MM Outreach personnel on KKLA radio in Los Angeles. The interview in Real Media and MP3 formats can be downloaded from the Watchtower News web site. ₅

References used:

1. "Charitable Work and Ethnocultural Groups - Information on registering as a charity," Canada Revenue Agency, at: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/
2. Ibid, "(iii) The advancement of religion," at" http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca
3. "2006 Saint Louis Conference on Biblical Discernment," at: http://www.pfo.org/2006tape.htm
4. MM Outreach's home page is at: http://www.macgregorministries.org/
5. "Canada Shuts Down Macgregor Ministries!," at: http://watchtowernews.org/ 
6. "Comments on the Charity Status of MacGregor Ministries," undated, at: http://mmoutreachinc.com/