Martha Rans QC Appointed to the Advisory Committee on the Charitable Sector (ACCS)
Pacific Legal Education and Outreach Society is thrilled to announce that the Minister of National Revenue, the Honourable Diane Lebouthillier has appointed our Founder and Legal Director Martha Rans QC to the Advisory Committee on the Charitable Sector (ACCS).
The ACCS is a consultative forum for the Government of Canada to engage in meaningful dialogue with the charitable sector in order to advance emerging issues relating to charities, and ensure the regulatory environment supports the important work that charities do.
The ACCS is co-chaired by the charitable sector and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). It provides recommendations to the Minister of National Revenue and the Commissioner of the CRA on important and emerging issues facing the charitable sector on an ongoing basis.
The ACCS is made up of 15 members with experience grounded in the issues facing the charitable sector, including registered charities, national umbrella organizations, professional associations, charity researchers/academics, and legal experts. All members, including two sector co-chairs, are appointed by the Minister of National Revenue or the Commissioner of the CRA.
As a lawyer who specializes in the legal needs of non-profit societies, charities, co-operatives, and artists, and who is a vocal advocate for the arts, culture and heritage sector, Martha Rans QC is a valuable addition to the ACCS.
A recognized expert on both Canada's Copyright Act as well as the BC Societies Act, Martha advises on copyright, charity law, incorporation, privacy, employment, labour, health & safety and human rights and is an advocate for public legal education and information.
Finally, Martha is the Founder and Legal Director of Pacific Legal Education and Outreach Society (PLEOS), home of the Artists Legal Outreach and Law for Non-Profits through which she has supported thousands of artists and non-profits in accessing legal support.
In honour of Martha’s appointment to the ACCS, we sat down to discuss the importance of these kinds of committees, and how she hopes to support the sector.
Why is it so important to have experts in the law governing non-profits and charities represented on federal advisory committees like the ACCS?
If you look at BC, you’ve got 29 000 societies and few places where they can go to get information beyond the BC Societies Registry. Which is where people can find out information such as where they file an annual report, but if they have a question like, “How do we sort out the dispute we are having with a member?”, the Registry will probably say: “You need to get legal advice. We don’t provide legal advice”.
That often leaves many societies that affect every single person in this province without access to the legal information, education and advice information they need.
I’ll give you an example. Today I was on a call with a society who held an electronic meeting, at which their bylaws were changed. One of the members doesn’t like the outcome of the vote and has gone to the Civil Resolution Tribunal for adjudication. There is a recent court case, Farrish v. Delta Hospice Society, 2020 BCSC 968, where the Court found that when looking at the whole of the bylaws a society may not be able to hold an electronic meeting if the bylaws appear to suggest that you have to be “present” in person at the meeting. The outcome of that decision is that every single society that uses either Schedule B Bylaws (old Society Act), or the Model 1 Bylaws (Societies Act), needs to change them. But they don’t know that this is the case.
How can committees like the ACCS support the non-profit and charitable sector in post-pandemic recovery?
It’s an opportunity for community members to share the experiences of the non-profit and charitable sector with the CRA. What is working and what isn’t.
One of the issues that has come up a lot in light of the pandemic has been the needs of people in communities for direct assistance, and that some of the organizations that can provide that assistance may not have the exact charitable purposes that permit them to do so.
Another issue is the direction and control issue, which we talked about with Senator Ratna Omidvar.
There is legislation that has been tabled, and a federal budget that is supportive of this change, but there is still going to have to be some control, so it will be very interesting to see what happens with this. But supporting the abilities of groups of non-profits that are not charitable, which is the vast majority of the non-profit sector - to be able to access charitable funds, I think is a really important value here.
And I think if we are going to see a levelling of the playing field, you might say, we need to be putting the money in the hands of people who have not had it before. And whether that is to vulnerable communities, Indigenous and Black-led organizations, or other communities, that’s where the money needs to go. And they need support in order to do that.
How can other organizations get involved and have their voices heard?
What I would like to do is set up a way for people who work and volunteer in the non-profit and charitable sector in BC to reach out with questions. This is a long term dream, but I believe it needs to happen.
In the meantime, reach out to PLEO, reach out to Vantage Point, to the Vancouver Foundation, and the other organizations working in the sector to improve the conditions for non-profits and charities, and share your stories, needs, and issues.
The more we know, the more first-hand experiences we can share, the stronger are our voices, and the louder our calls for change.
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