I noted that it didn’t seem like it violated any of the NDP or Canada Election rules, but one further recollection I realized that the rules being broken weren’t by Martin Singh’s campaign but by the Malton Gurdwara.

A Gurdwara is a Sikh Temple and the Malton Gurdwara is operated by a federally registered charity: Sri Guru Singh Sabha Canada. From its T3010 return we learn that its charitable mandate is 70% “Places of worship, congregations, parishes, dioceses, etc.” and 30% “Food or clothing banks, soup kitchens, hostels”. In its 2011 return it claimed to perform no “political activities during the fiscal period.”

From the Canada Revenue guidelines around charities and political/partisan activities:

149.1

(6.1) Charitable purposes

For the purposes of the definition “charitable foundation” in subsection (1), where a corporation or trust devotes substantially all of its resources to charitable purposes and

(a) it devotes part of its resources to political activities,
(b) those political activities are ancillary and incidental to its charitable purposes, and
(c) those political activities do not include the direct or indirect support of, or opposition to, any political party or candidate for public office,

the corporation or trust shall be considered to be constituted and operated for charitable purposes to the extent of that part of its resources so devoted.

(6.2) Charitable activities

For the purposes of the definition “charitable organization” in subsection (1), where an organization devotes substantially all of its resources to charitable activities carried on by it and

(a) it devotes part of its resources to political activities,
(b) those political activities are ancillary and incidental to its charitable activities, and
(c) those political activities do not include the direct or indirect support of, or opposition to, any political party or candidate for public office,

the organization shall be considered to be devoting that part of its resources to charitable activities carried on by it. [emphasis original]

Furthermore from that advisory:

A registered charity is prohibited from directly or indirectly supporting or opposing a candidate for public office as well as a political party. In deciding whether a charity is engaged in prohibited activity, we generally consider whether the activity can reasonably be construed as intending to influence the outcome of the election. [emphasis mine]

The rules get a bit murkier as “hosted a leadership poll for a single candidate” is not specifically outlined in the examples cited by the CRA but this feels like its crossing a line into a church endorsing a specific leadership candidate.

To contact the Canada Revenue Service call 1-800-267-2384. Let me know if you take this story farther.

I’ve had my differences with CFI Canada in the past, but we are on the same side, and they continue to do the most for freethought in Canada. I therefore urge you to donate to their “Next Big Step” campaign to help raise half a million dollars, enough to lease or buy physical locations for each of their centres in Canada.

So go and donate now, and again, and get your friends to donate to the Next Big Step campaign.

The deadline is September 30th, so there’s not a lot of time to reach this goal.

The idea is, as I’ve now learned, based off the growing social enterprise movement which seeks to have companies run for financial, social and environmental gain – the triple bottom line. In many cases the corporation is actually a non-profit or charitable organization which runs a business to fund its work and expansion. A highly successful model of this sort of idea is the Salvation Army’s Thrift Stores which finance much of their missionary and religious work.

So the idea that I had today was sparked by a desire within the Vancouver skeptical/freethought community to have a place of our own, that is a venue where we can routinely host out discussions, meetings and set up an office or two.

Currently CFI Vancouver meets sporadically in cheap or free spaces that are provided by campus groups or rented at reduced rates (through its charitable status) and the BC Humanist Association meets weekly at the Oakridge Senior’s Centre through a deal they have there.

CFI is committed to seeing something more permanent in the next few years be established and while the Senior’s Centre is a great venue for the BCHA, there is the justified concern both inside and outside the organization that the word “senior” in the venue’s name is a deterrent.

So the idea I had was that these organizations ought to found a coffee shop/cafe, which during regular hours can be open to the public for coffee, cookies, and what-have you, with an extra influence of humanism and skepticism present (such as a resource library for the curious and some science-inspired artwork or something). Then, during evenings, weekends, or whenever it is needed, the shop can close up, move the tables aside (or not) and serve as a meeting venue for the invested groups.

There’s a few bonuses in this format. First, the coffee shop serves as an advertisement and fundraiser for the associated charities. Second, the venue would accommodate the majority of the events being held (the larger lectures and debates will always require large campus lecture halls), and would have coffee and snacks available, and could even be potentially licensed.

The drawbacks are the large initial investment required (likely a few $100,000 which none of these organizations have), and the requirement that someone will actually have to manage the business end of things.

However, with a strong business plan and the right people, it should be possible to raise the requisite funds via government grants, personal donations, and loans if necessary.

It’s also worth noting that under Vancouver’s basic commercial zoning laws [pdf], most of these types of spaces can be used for the categories of cultural and recreational (including clubs and community centres), institutional (schools), offices, retail and services. So there should be no difficulty with this portion.

Now, who has some entrepreneurial experience and wants to get this started?

To everyone who has donated, thank-you. Countless more will undoubtedly be needed, so please spare what you can.