Budget 2024: Canada's charitable foundations key partners for government and Canadians

Budget 2024: Canada’s charitable foundations key partners for government and Canadians

Sara Krynitzki

Policy Advisories

3 mins read

Apr 17, 2024

Released late yesterday, 2024 Budget focuses greatly on addressing Canada’s housing crisis, and on expanding or providing new social supports. The charitable sector was a dominant theme in many areas, referenced several times, and named as pillar for communities across the country.

Of particular note is the government’s housing plan announced last week and reiterated in Budget 2024 including their proposed Canada Rental Protection Fund. It would provide $1B in loans and $470M in contributions to non-profit and other partners to help them acquire rental units and keep prices down, while mobilizing co-investments and financing from the charitable sector and others.

Housing is one of the biggest challenges of our time, facing every community in Canada. Creating more affordable housing requires big investments from everyone, including governments, private sector and philanthropy. Partnering with government to unlock the power of philanthropy to make impact investments and advance the common good in even deeper ways has long been a priority for PFC.

PFC also notes the revision on the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), to allow individuals to claim 80 per cent (instead of the previously proposed 50 per cent) of the Charitable Donation Tax Credit when calculating AMT. This measure will reduce potential negative impacts on charities. The charitable sector should not become collateral damage for legitimate efforts to address rising income inequality.

PFC is pleased to see greater resources pledged for the CRA to administer historic sector regulatory changes made over the past few years. We are hopeful that these resources will support the government in following through on its promise from Budget 2022 to conduct a review of the disbursement quota by 2027.

In addition, other promises that will be of interest to some in the PFC network, include:

more funding for research and a new advisory council on Science and Innovation, with charitable sector participation.
$60M over five years to Prosper Canada for financial literacy initiatives.
$58.8M over three years to support the production of local news across the country for the Local Journalism Initiative out of the Department of Canadian Heritage. This support would be available to written press, community radio and television, and online news services.
$5M to support the construction of the new Montréal Holocaust Museum.
$45M over five years, starting in 2025-26, and $9M ongoing, to support the capacity of PFC member the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, along with $18M over six years, starting in 2024-25, and $3M ongoing, to expand the scope of their work and create a stand-alone Combatting Hate: Community Information Resource Hub. The Hub will bring together, government, law enforcement and professionals to collect hate-crime related data, develop common standards for reporting and defining hate crimes; and provide important hate-crime related training.
A National Volunteer Strategy in partnership with Volunteer Canada.

PFC welcomes the opportunities the government has outlined to work with our sector, and to improve the impact of charities and non-profits on the wellbeing of Canadians. However, the budget reveals no progress on the creation of a home in government for our sector, and there are no investments in sector-wide data collection.

PFC will continue to monitor the development and roll-out of the Budget promises and the impact and opportunities for our sector they present. 

Learn more about the Government of Canada’s Budget 2024: https://budget.canada.ca/2024/home-accueil-en.html

See PFC’s 2024 Pre-Budget Submission here.