Sports and charity.

• Date: 01 September 2008
• Author: Broder, Peter

As I write this, it is not possible to know how well or poorly Canada performed in the Beijing Olympics. No doubt that will be a subject of much discussion around the water cooler later this year. We do know that Canada's weak performance at the 1968 Mexico Olympics was one of the factors that spurred measures to give Registered Canadian Amateur Athletic Associations (RCAAAs) special tax treatment.

RCAAAs are national umbrella bodies associated with individual sports and, like registered charities, can issue tax receipts to donors for contributions they receive. Often they are governing bodies mandated, among other activities, to play a role in identifying and supporting elite amateur athletes for international competitions.

Inclusion of the RCAAA scheme in the Income Tax Act [ITA] provided occasion for a recent clarification of the law on whether sports activities can be charitable and whether groups promoting or providing sports programs can be registered charities. A Federal Court of Appeal ruling that Parliament's creation of a special tax category for RCAAAs could bar other types of groups engaging in amateur sports from qualifying as registered charities triggered an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. It considered the question of sports activities and charitable status.

[Note: In my then role as Corporate Counsel for Imagine Canada, I helped mount an intervention in this case by Imagine Canada, funded by The Muttart Foundation and several other foundations.]

In 2007, the Supreme Court held in A. Y.S.A. Amateur Youth Soccer Association v. Canada (Revenue Agency) [A.Y.S.A.] that by creating the RCAAA category, Parliament did not foreclose the possibility of groups...