What's inside

New Court Decision Summaries for 2023

Most charities do not regularly find themselves applying as interveners in court. This makes good sense! Charities are busy fulfilling their charitable purposes through a wide range of activities and have neither time nor inclination to go to court. That’s where CCCC plays an important role. With in-house counsel, a national perspective, and a Legal Defence Fund with the specific purpose of engaging in legal matters that impact our members, we are well-positioned to intervene in important court cases. The decision in Le-Vel Brands, LLC v. Canada illustrates the strict approach courts take toward interventions, particularly in the federal courts. It’s also a helpful reminder to all of us that even if CCCC “without question” has a genuine interest in the matter, and has useful perspectives, that’s not necessarily enough–all elements of the stringently applied test must be met.

Spring Cleaning in the CCCC Knowledge Base

CCCC’s Knowledge Base has been active for almost two-and-a-half years! So, we’ve learned what our Members use and what they don’t. Now, we’re putting more effort into cleaning things up so that our information is easy to find and search results are focused! We’ve created a 4-minute video about the ins and outs of CCCC's resource archiving process. This video shares why certain resources might not appear in our Knowledge Base search, or side navigation menu. It shares how the resources you know and love are being updated or included in new topics. Take a look at how we are keeping our records fresh and clean.

Case Law Summaries

An important (but unseen!) part of our work in keeping up to date on the charitable sector is to monitor court decisions. While our legal team enjoys this, we know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, so we write summaries that highlight the key issues, legal analysis and explain how it impacts you, our members. For example:

• In Dors et al. v The Public Guardian and Trustee, we see how courts can intervene if an estate trustee cannot make a charitable gift as directed by the deceased by directing it to another charity with similar objects.
• In both Fortius Foundation v Canada and Muslim Association of Canada v Attorney General of Canada, we see how difficult it is to prohibit the CRA from issuing a final decision (e.g. on audit findings, revoking charitable status), even if the charity has an open court case on the same subject matter.
• In Grand Forks Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses (Re), we learn that religious organizations are not exempt from disclosure obligations under BC’s Personal Information Protection Act, and how churches may want to consider forms or templates used by spiritual leaders for note-taking purposes.
• In Leduc Society for Christian Education v The King, we learn that Christian schools may put donation receipts in jeopardy if they enter into agreements with local school boards that effectively result “in their privately operated schools becoming public ones.”

For more, check out the Case Law Summaries section of our Knowledge Base.

Stewardship of Your Ministry's Investments

Would you like to learn how to make the most of your ministry's capital investments while responsibly stewarding your resources? If so, join us at CCCC’s webinar "Stewardship of Your Ministry's Investments". During this webinar, we'll explain how investments can align with Christian values and generate steady returns for ministries over time. Click here to register.

Mileage Reimbursement

CRA has recently adjusted its recommended mileage reimbursement rates and users discuss how they manage this reimbursement (and others) in their own ministries. Feel free to join the discussion and find out what others are doing as well as letting users know how you manage some of the reimbursements to paid and unpaid staff.