Business
It’s time to supersize charitable tax credits, not political ones
From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
By Jay Goldberg
Are political parties more valuable than charities?
You’d be hard pressed to find a single Canadian that thinks so, but that’s how they’re treated under today’s tax system.
The way tax credits are handed out in Canada needs to be revamped. The system is broken, both federally and provincially. It’s time to stop giving big tax credits for political donations. Instead, let’s give tax breaks to folks when they donate to charity.
Consider this present-day scenario.
Last year, Sally donated $250 to the Conservative Party of Canada and another $250 to Save the Children. Jim donated $250 to the Ontario Liberals and another $250 to the Make a Wish Foundation.
When tax time came, the federal government let Sally use both her donations to lower her tax bill.
But one donation counted a lot more against Sally’s tax bill than the other. And it’s not the one that you might think.
For the Save the Children donation, Sally’s $250 donation netted a $44.50 credit towards her tax bill. The province added in another $15.90. That means she will get $60.40 back at tax time.
How about her political contribution?
Because it was a federal political party donation, Sally only received a federal tax credit. But the feds will give her back $187.50 when she files her taxes.
In other words, the amount Sally gets back from donating to a political party is three times as much as her donation to charity.
For those paying income tax, the tax credit situation for a $250 donation, both to charities and political parties, is identical at the provincial level.
Jim gets $60.40 back at tax time from his charitable donation and $187.50 from Queen’s Park for his provincial political donation.
That means the money Jim gets back from his provincial political donation, like Sally’s at the federal level, is three times larger than what he gets back for donating to charity.
On what sane planet should both the feds and Queen’s Park be giving out tax credits for political donations so much more generous than tax credits for making donations to charity?
Making a terminally ill child’s wishes come true should be valued more than helping politicians pay for political attack ads.
Canada’s provincial and federal governments should take funds that go toward tax credits for political donations and reallocate them to tax credits for charitable donations. Credits for political donations should be scrapped.
Tax credits exist to try to encourage behaviour. The whole idea behind it is that if you give folks a bit of a financial incentive to make a donation, they’ll be more likely to do so.
That makes sense when it comes to charities. It’s a worthy policy goal to have a tax credit in place to encourage Canadians to make donations to organizations that work to make a meaningful difference in people’s lives.
But why should taxpayers be incentivizing donations to political parties? Why encourage Canadians to shell out money that will end up paying for leaflets, lawn signs and attack ads?
Some try to justify the tax credit regime by arguing that because political parties can’t take corporate or union donations, they need help encouraging individuals to make donations.
But ask anyone on the street, and they’ll tell you it’s charitable donations, not political ones, that should be encouraged.
If political parties can’t raise as much money without the tax credit, they should just spend less money. No one is going to shed tears over seeing fewer attack ads on television.
The sole goal of a political party is to get themselves elected. Why should they get credits of up to 75 per cent while charitable donations get trivial treatment?
It’s time to stop treating political parties like charities on steroids. That means putting political donation tax credits on the chopping block. Instead, the same money can and should be used to supersize tax credits for charitable donations.
From Resource Works
Barry Penner doesn’t posture – he brings evidence. And lately, the evidence has been catching up fast to what he’s been saying for months.
Penner, chair of the Energy Futures Institute and a former B.C. environment minister and attorney-general, walked me through polling that showed a decisive pattern: declining support for electric-vehicle mandates, rising opposition, and growing intensity among those pushing back.
That was before the political landscape started shifting beneath our feet.
In the weeks since our conversation, the B.C. government has begun retreating from its hardline EV stance, softening requirements and signalling more flexibility. At the same time, Ottawa has opened the door to revising its own rules, acknowledging what the market and motorists have been signalling for some time.
Penner didn’t need insider whispers to see this coming. He had the data.
Barry Penner, Chair of the Energy Futures Institute
B.C.’s mandate remains the most aggressive in North America: 26 per cent ZEV sales by 2026, 90 per cent by 2030, and 100 per cent by 2035. Yet recent sales paint a different picture. Only 13 per cent of new vehicles sold in June were electric. “Which means 87 per cent weren’t,” Penner notes. “People had the option. And 87 per cent chose a non-electric.”
Meanwhile, Quebec has already adjusted its mandate to give partial credit for hybrids. Polling shows 76 per cent of British Columbians want the same. The trouble? “There’s a long waiting list to get one,” Penner says.
Cost, charging access and range remain the top barriers for consumers. And with rebates shrinking or disappearing altogether, the gap between policy ambition and practical reality is now impossible for governments to ignore.
Penner’s advice is simple, and increasingly unavoidable: “Recognition of reality is in order.”
- Now watch Barry Penner’s full video interview with Stewart Muir on Power Struggle here:
From LifeSiteNews
By Matt Lamb
Chevrolet’s new Christmas ad portrays the ups and downs of family life and the fun of parenting.
Car company Chevrolet launched its Christmas ad campaign with a beautiful commercial that highlights the messiness of raising kids while championing the value of having a family.
The ad, titled “Memory Lane,” shows a middle-aged married couple loading up their decades-old Chevy Suburban with food to head off to a family dinner. At this point, the ad switches between the couple in the present day and grainy, recorder-quality video of family memories.
It begins with a young family, including a baby, loading up into the same car. As the couple begins to drive, the wife and mom is reminiscing. The husband asks her not to “keep all the good stuff” to herself.
From there, the ad reflects on the ups and downs of the family’s life, including memories of mistakenly tying a Christmas tree to the car door and comforting their college-aged daughter about a break-up. As the couple pulls up to a house at the end of their trip, the wife turns to her husband and says: “They never made it easy, did they?”
“Did you want it to be easy?” he replies.
“No, I wanted it to be just like it was,” she says, before they exit the car to meet family, including a grandchild and a new dog that looks like their old dog.
“The greatest journey is the one we take together,” the ad ends.
Commercial accurately portrays that family life isn’t easy, but it is fun
Anyone who has kids knows that it is not always easy raising them, but it is enjoyable. They scream, they cause messes, they wake you up in the middle of the night. And that’s just before they turn five years old. It only gets more enjoyable, and more difficult, as they age (from what I can tell).
Even if you do not have kids, you can probably remember your own life and think about the ways you caused your parents headaches (getting a bad grade in a class or breaking the curfew), but also the ways you brought them joy (graduating from college, joining the military, or getting married).
The truth is that families are messy, and no one is guaranteed an easy life. But the important thing is to persevere by sticking together.
Another thing that stuck out is that both parents remained married throughout their life and are celebrating Christmas with both of their children.
One of the kids did not avoid Christmas because dad voted for Trump or because mom has strongly held religious beliefs – something that does happen to the glee (and detriment) of leftist writers. The entire family, not just those who perfectly agree with each other, were together for the holidays. In fact, this is one way we honor our father and mother, by getting together over the holidays and at other family gatherings.
As a parent myself, I sometimes wish it would be “easy,” but the truth is the ups and downs are what make it enjoyable.
Thank you to Chevy for reminding me, and other parents, of this lesson.
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