When Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne introduces his federal budget this fall, there’s at least one item he should leave out: eliminating the “advancement of religion” as a charitable purpose. Atheist activists have long sought to eliminate charities’ ability to issue tax receipts to donors if their primary purpose is the advancement of religion. In late 2024, activists finally managed to get their recommendation into the federal finance committee’s pre-budget report. Minister Champagne should reject the idea explicitly.

It is estimated that roughly 38 per cent of charitable organizations are registered under the advancement of religion. As my Cardus colleagues Andreae Sennyah and Daniel Liegmann have argued, “the sector-wide implications of changing the rules for charitable status would be significant.”

There are good reasons for faith-based charities that promote the advancement of religion to continue to benefit from charitable status. Ironically, it would also help even the folks who propose abandonment. If we wish to be consistent, eliminating the advancement of religion as a charitable purpose would also mean eliminating it for charities that exist to advance an atheistic or secularist philosophy. But this, too, would be unjust.

Faith communities make significant contributions to Canadians’ lives. “Research has found that active participation in the activities of religious communities is associated with a lower likelihood of debilitating social isolation, lower mortality and morbidity rates, and better quality of life,” wrote my colleagues in their pre-budget submission.

Faith communities obviously benefit those who to choose to join them but they also benefit the broader society by virtue of what their faith calls them to do in terms of social action. Like families, faith communities provide both spiritual and material support to Canadians from birth to death. They have been present in Canada for 400 years, dating back to 1645 when Jeanne Mance founded what was perhaps the earliest faith-based charity in Canada: the Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal hospital. There was no welfare state in 1645, no government of Canada and barely a New France to speak of, yet there was the church establishing a hospital to minister to all those in need.

Faith-based charities have never been the initiative of the state, but rather the initiative of religious people who sought to improve their and their neighbours’ lives. As Cardus’ 2020 Diakonia project said of those involved in faith-based charities: “These Canadians do not undertake this work for the good of their own faith group, but for the good of all. (This) highlights a core aspect of religious freedom: the freedom to live out one’s deepest-held beliefs through concrete actions that serve the common good.” In other words, their charitable work comes as a result of their religion, not in spite or instead of it.

The intricate web of faith-based charities sustains Canadians across the country at the most local level. The state could not fill that void, given the breadth and depth of these charities’ activities, nor could it do so as efficiently and effectively as these charities do. Which is why Canadian law provides support for faith-based charities, recognizing the role they play in ministering to all Canadians.

“So many people are asked to give when they go to their church, or their synagogue, or their temple, and that’s the basis on which they learn philanthropy,” said the late senator Terry Mercer in 2019, as the Senate reaffirmed religious organizations’ charitable status. The Hon. Ratna Omidvar, who has since retired from the Senate, noted that “religious institutions do more than simply preserve their religious beliefs; they extend themselves in very significant ways.”

For the good of all Canadians, the advancement of religion should remain a charitable purpose.

• Rev. Andrew Bennett is director of faith community engagement at Cardus.