Canada is a secular, multicultural country where the government has a duty of religious neutrality.
This duty is undermined by the automatic presumption in Canadian law that "advancement of religion" is a charitable purpose.
This rule gives religious groups huge tax breaks, costing the government billions of dollars annually. It forces every taxpayer to subsidize private, devotional and proselytizing activities, with little oversight.
A Parliamentary Committee has already endorsed modernizing our laws, it's time the Government listened.
Sign the petition to tell the Mark Carney Government to make our charity laws fair.
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We call on the Government of Canada to amend the Income Tax Act to provide a definition of a charity which would remove the privileged status of "advancement of religion" as a charitable purpose.
This move will ensure that only organizations that provide a true benefit the whole community qualify as a charitable organization.
Organizations that do positive works, like running food banks and homeless shelters, will be able to keep their charitable status under other categories.
But the government will no longer subsidize religious proselytizing.