By Benjamin Miller The Ontario Nonprofit Network has been studying the way the government funds nonprofits through transfer payments for many years. I was brought on this summer as a research fellow to take a fresh look at these relationships. I started by reading through Ontario’s core policy statements like the Transfer Payment Accountability Directive and the Transfer Payment Operational Policy Agreement, and the government’s...
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Court recognizes charities’ unlimited right to nonpartisan political advocacy for charitable purposes By Benjamin Miller Two years ago, Canada Without Poverty (CWP), an Ontario anti-poverty charity that advocates for policy change, took the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) to court for limiting its constitutional right to political speech. This week, the Superior Court of Ontario said CWP was absolutely right. The court struck down CRA’s 10%...
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By Burkhard Mausberg Government relations is a fickle art. Its success is rarely guaranteed. Outside events can scuttle the best laid plans. Access to decision-makers is often limited. And then elections happen. All this makes government relations a marathon, never a sprint. I’ve used the words “government relations” here because the words “lobbying” and “lobbyists” have become dirty words. The image of greedy industrial lobbyists...
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By Teshini Harrison, ONN policy analyst Every Ontarian is connected to a nonprofit – whether through the cultural festival on the weekend, the environmental program at a local park, the social housing services, the hockey league at the town arena, the child care program, or the community research on food security.” – ONN Value framework for Ontario’s Nonprofit Sector Ontario has a new government. So...
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Written in partnership between the ONN, Laidlaw Foundation and Imagine Canada “Investing in our communities is not just about creating good jobs and economic growth. It is also about building communities that we are proud to call home.” – Canadian Government Priority Across Canada, in every community, public benefit nonprofit organizations are hard at work reducing poverty, providing affordable housing, developing opportunities for young people,...
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– A Toronto initiative that could be copied in cities around the province By Margaret Hancock (Family Service Toronto), Rob Howarth (Toronto Neighbourhood Centres) and Sean Meagher (Social Planning Toronto) On December 7, 2017, Toronto City Council adopted a new policy framework, called For Public Benefit, to celebrate and enhance the City of Toronto’s relationship with the community-based not-for-profit sector. This framework was co-created over...
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Civil society, social economy, the voluntary sector, the third sector, the nonprofit sector, the charitable sector… These are some of the terms used to describe nonprofit organizations collectively, yet these names don’t fully capture all that the sector is and does in serving communities. The nonprofit sector in Canada is one of the fastest growing sectors in the Canadian economy. Virtually every Canadian is connected...
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As with many in the nonprofit sector here in Canada, over the last month our team has watched our US nonprofit counterparts struggle with what the new administration will mean for their organizations, their communities and the role of the nonprofit sector in the country. As public benefit organizations, we are closely connected to communities with an ear to the ground – seeing firsthand when...
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Our commitment to decent work began many years ago when we committed to being evidence-informed and using data to inform our planning and evaluation processes. This means all data, but in particular data and knowledge that was co-created with community through our community based research program. It became crystal clear to us that bad jobs are making people sick, that pathways to precarious employment are...
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The Government of Ontario recently reintroduced The Election Finances Statute Law Amendment Act (Bill 2 – formerly Bill 201), which changes the rules for provincial election financing. We don’t disagree with Bill 2’s stated intent. To reduce the influence of powerful third-party spenders in elections is a good thing. Democracy can be subverted when there is too much influence from wealthy third parties on politics....
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