SPNO Submission re: Bill 254 (2021)

March 29, 2021

Re: Bill 254, Protecting Ontario Elections Act, 2021

To the Honourable Doug Downey, Attorney General; Kaleed Rasheed, Chair of the Standing Committee on the Legislative Assembly; and Members of the Standing Committee:

We, The Social Planning Network of Ontario (SPNO), are writing to express our serious concerns about sections of Bill 254 and its impact, as presently written, on Ontario’s non-profit and charitable sector.

SPNO is an independent network of sixteen non-profit social planning and community development organizations across Ontario. Each organization works on local social development issues. Collectively, we unite as SPNO on social policy matters of province-wide concern – in this case – sections of Bill 254.

SPNO is also a member of the Ontario Non-Profit Network (ONN) and, not only share the significant concerns expressed in the ONN submission, but feel strongly enough to write separately about the impacts of Bill 254 and election finance rules on the non-profit sector.

Non-profit and charitable organizations working in communities across Ontario perform a pivotal role in engaging citizens, informing decision-makers and funders about emerging issues and advocating for public policy that makes critical investments in communities and Ontarians. We are not partisan. We are issue-based. Bill 254, as written, could be used to impose silence on the voices of real people in real communities – voices that government so often herald as critical stakeholders in the development of public policy. It is in this context that we emphasize our strong support for ONN’s request that “Bill 254 be amended to allow the public benefit sector to undertake their issue advocacy work on behalf of their communities and keep the focus of legislation on the big spenders engaged in partisan advertising.”

The not-for-profit sector’s ability to collaborate around funding, planning, program development, public awareness and advocacy allows us to achieve positive, meaningful impacts in communities across the province. In fact, collaboration is now a prerequisite for funders at all government levels. Collaboration, not collusion describes the myriad of ways in which non-profits work together to achieve their collective goals. To divorce advocacy efforts from the realm of collaboration by suggesting it is somehow reflective of collusion is unfair and unfounded.

Last, but far from least, we refer you to the 2018 Supreme Court of Canada’s “Canada Without Poverty” ruling on the ability of non-profit organizations and charities to engage in non-partisan advocacy work and the February 2019 Government of Canada’s decision not to appeal this ruling which lead to the rewriting of the rules in the Income Tax Act. It would therefore appear unconstitutional for the Ontario government to limit/impede charities in their participation in nonpartisan advocacy. In light of those decisions that followed from that landmark ruling, it is now widely understood across Canada that legitimate charitable activities include public policy advocacy.

We encourage the Standing Committee to recognize the critical role played by Ontario’s nonprofit sector in the democratic process and to ensure that an enabling environment is provided for public-benefit, nonprofit issue advocacy.

Sincerely,

Yvonne Kelly
Chair, SPNO