This video provides a brief introduction to the legal requirement that a charity must always remain non-partisan. It’s the third of three videos brought to you by the Canada Revenue Agency on registered charities and political activities.

A political activity is considered to be any activity that tries to change, retain, or oppose a law, policy or decision of any government.

Charities can carry out a limited amount of political activities in support of their charitable purpose, and there are specific limits on those political activities:

• A charity’s charitable purposes must always come first – charities are not political entities. A charity’s political activities must always be a minor focus of the organization, and serve only to support the charity’s charitable purposes.
• While charities have a great deal of expertise and experience to offer to the ongoing discussion on public policy, a long-standing requirement of the law is that a charity must be non-partisan.

"Non-partisan" has a specific meaning when it comes to charities: it means that charities must never use any resources to directly or indirectly support or oppose any political party or candidate for public office. By resources, we mean anything that a charity owns or controls, such as money, buildings, or staff or volunteer time. For instance, a charity must never make a campaign donation to a political party, or tell its volunteers to help out on a candidate’s bid for election.

But being non-partisan means more than just staying out of direct involvement in elections: it also means that when a charity shares its views on a policy, law, or issue, it must not connect those views with any particular political party or candidate.

For example, an educational charity could say publicly that Canada’s provincial governments should all adopt a general policy of building more schools, and by itself this would probably be an acceptable political activity. But if its statement also congratulated a certain political party in a particular province for also supporting such a policy, this would be considered partisan.

A charity carrying out any partisan activity could face serious consequences, including losing its registered status.

This video is part of the Canada Revenue Agency’s balanced program of education and responsible enforcement to make sure that if a charity is carrying out political activities, they are doing so in a manner that complies with the law.

Visit the Canada Revenue Agency’s webpage called "Resources for charities about political activities." You’ll find information sheets, guidance, a self-assessment tool, and questions and answers about political activities and Canada’s charities.