National
Canadian gov’t budget report targets charitable status of pro-life groups, churches

From LifeSiteNews
A Pre-Budget Consultations in Advance of the 2025 Budget report recommends no longer providing charitable status to anti-abortion organizations and amending the Income Tax Act to remove the privileged status of ‘advancement of religion’ as a charitable purpose.
In 2022, I wrote an essay titled “What is coming next for Canadian churches?” In that essay, as well as in my recent book How We Got Here, I noted that as Canada shifted from being a post-Christian society to an increasingly anti-Christian one, Christian churches and organizations will inevitably lose tax-exempt or charitable status:
Churches and other religious institutions that refuse to bend the knee will likely lose their tax-exempt status at some point. Canadian LGBT activists have been making this case for years, and it is only a matter of time before the idea catches on or — more likely — a progressive politician decides that the time is right. I suspect that a key reason this has not yet been discussed is the awkward fact that many non-Christian institutions hold similar positions on marriage, sexuality, and abortion. That said, I have no doubt that a way to target churches specifically will be worked out. LGBT activists are already asking why the government is “rewarding bigotry” by awarding tax-exempt status to churches with a traditional view of sexuality, and LGBT activists have publicized sermons they disagree with as evidence of hatred. The churches and the state are on a collision course, and it isn’t hard to guess how this will end.
We may be seeing the first move in that direction. With the Christmas season upon us and Ottawa in chaos, few Canadians noticed the government’s publication of “Pre-Budget Consultations In Advance of the 2025 Budget,” the report of the Standing Committee on Finance. The report of annual pre-budget consultations included 462 recommendations that have been tabled and, according to the Standing Committee, will be taken into account by “the Minister of Finance in the development of the 2025 federal budget” (which, if Trudeau is still in power, will be Dominic LeBlanc).
Two recommendations included in that report are deeply concerning, and the Christian Legal Fellowship has written to both the Minister of Finance and the Finance Committee Chair Peter Fonseca to express that concern:
Recommendation 429: No longer provide charitable status to anti-abortion organizations.
Recommendation 430: Amend the Income Tax Act to provide a definition of a charity which would remove the privileged status of ‘advancement of religion’ as a charitable purpose.
Those two recommendations, of course, were buried at the very end of the report. The first is unsurprising — Trudeau’s government is currently targeting crisis pregnancy centers that assist moms and babies in need, so it was inevitable that the government was eventually going to target local Right to Life organizations and other pro-life groups that still have charitable status. More brazen is the recommendation that the Income Tax Act be amended to eliminate “advancement of religion” as a charitable purpose — this could, according to the Christian Legal Fellowship, “have a devastating impact, not only on the 32,000+ religious charities in this country, but the millions of Canadians they serve.” CLF urged the government “to reject any such approach and clarify exactly what is being contemplated.” As CLF noted in their letter:
Religious charities account for nearly 40% of all charities in Canada, including churches, mosques, temples, synagogues, and other faith communities, operating programs such as soup kitchens, shelters, refugee homes, and food banks. They provide indispensable social, economic, and spiritual support, filling a significant gap in our communities and meeting the needs of millions of Canadians.
Suggesting that such organizations must do something other than “advance religion” to be considered charitable ignores the reality that these services are themselves the very manifestation of religious beliefs, inherent to and inextricable from the charity’s religion itself. It also betrays a long-standing recognition of the intrinsic goods provided by religious communities, who offer people hope, encouragement, and belonging in ways that simply cannot be quantified or replaced. Ultimately, any efforts to substitute their much-needed services would place an extraordinary strain on all levels of government.
I have no doubt that the Trudeau government is willing to purse these recommendations regardless; these plans, however, may be thwarted by the next election. Trudeau no doubt remembers the Canada Summer Jobs Program fight, when his government insisted that recipients sign an attestation of support for abortion and LGBT ideology and suddenly found themselves facing angry imams, rabbis, and other religious leaders instead of just the priests and pastors they’d assumed would be impacted. It seems unlikely that going after religious charities is a fight Trudeau wants now.
Trudeau will, however, be campaigning on abortion — it’s the wedge issue he returns to again and again as the PMO increasingly resembles Custer’s Last Stand. Thus, Recommendation 429 may be taken up sooner rather than later. Either way, these two recommendations are essentially a statement of purpose. The Liberals may not get to them just now, but be assured that this is what progressives intend to do just as soon as they get the chance.
2025 Federal Election
It’s on! Federal Election called for April 28

New release from Conservative Party Communications
Canada First—For A Change
Today, the Liberals are asking for a fourth term in power, after swapping Justin Trudeau for his economic advisor and handpicked successor, Mark Carney.
After the lost Liberal decade, the question is whether Canadians can afford a fourth term of out-of-touch Liberals, inflating housing and food costs, unleashing crime, ruining immigration, hiking taxes, blocking resource jobs and making our economy weak and reliant on the U.S.?
Or is it time to put Canada First—FOR A CHANGE, with a new Conservative government that will axe taxes, build homes, cut waste, lock-up criminals, secure our borders and unleash our resources to bring home our jobs and stand up to Trump from a position of strength?
Now, I know many people are anxious and angry about the outrageous attacks that President Trump has made against our country. You worry about the cost of his unjust tariffs on your jobs and threats to our sovereignty. Our challenge now is to turn that anger and anxiety into action.
We must become strong, self-reliant and stand on our own feet—to stand up to the Americans. We will stare down this unprovoked threat with steely resolve, because, be assured, we will never be part of the United States and we will never ever give up our sovereignty and our freedom.
I will protect Canada. And I will always put our country first.
But before I tell you how, let me tell you why.
This country has given me everything. Nowhere else would my story be possible.
I was born to a 16-year-old single mom, who put me up for adoption to two schoolteachers. They taught me that the promise of Canada was that anyone from anywhere can achieve anything.
This country kept that promise to me. Now I want to restore that promise for all Canadians, so hard work again gets everyone a great life in a beautiful house on a safe street under our proud flag.
Because after the lost Liberal decade, that promise is broken. Liberal taxes drove food prices up 37% faster in Canada than in the U.S.
Single moms go to bed hungry worried about how they will feed their children in the morning, and seniors choose between eating and heating. Housing costs have doubled, as Liberals inflated demand with out-of-control immigration and money printing, and blocked homebuilding with bureaucracy—so for the first time in our history young Canadians can’t imagine affording their own place to live.
Open borders and Liberal crime and drug laws unleashed violence, disorder, and deadly overdoses. Ten years of Liberals hiking taxes and blocking resource projects gave Canada the worst growth in the G7 and sent a half-trillion dollars of Canadian investment to the U.S. ALL THAT, BEFORE THE TRUMP TARIFFS. Their radical post-national, borderless, globalist ideology has divided and weakened our country.
Now, desperate for a fourth term, the Liberals have swapped Justin Trudeau for his economic advisor and hand-picked successor, Mark Carney. But a Liberal is a Liberal is a Liberal. It’s still the same old Liberal MPs, same Liberal ministers, same Liberal advisors, same Liberal elites and same Liberal broken promises of the last 10 years.
We cannot afford another lost Liberal decade. We need to put Canada First—for a change, with a new Conservative Government to axe taxes, reward work, unleash entrepreneurs, harvest our resources, make things here, build homes for our youth, secure our borders, rebuild our military, honour our history and proudly raise our flag.
It starts with a big Bring It Home Tax Cut on work, homes, energy and investment. Lower taxes for a change to bring home businesses and jobs and let Canadians bring home more of their paycheques.
That starts with axing the carbon tax—a tax that the Liberals, with Mr. Carney’s enthusiastic support, have imposed and increased for seven years; a tax that is still in law, despite the government hiding it from gas stations for 30 days leading up to the election; a tax they will bring back bigger than ever before if re-elected.
On this point, Mr. Carney and Mr. Trump agree. They both want to tax Canadian industry—Carney’s carbon tax and Trump’s tariffs will send our jobs south.
But I won’t let that happen. A new Conservative government will fully repeal the Liberal carbon tax law and axe the tax for everything, for everyone, for real, for good, for a change.
We will also axe the sales tax on new homes and incentivize municipalities to speed up permits, free up land and cut building taxes to restore the dream of homeownership.
We will bring home our resource jobs—for a change. That means repealing the Liberal No-New-Pipelines Law C-69, lifting the Liberal cap on energy that Carney said he will keep, and quickly approving LNG plants, pipelines, mines, and major projects. New Canada First Shovel Ready Zones will pre-permit big projects, so industry can stop filling out paperwork and start building now.
With a new national pipeline—like the one the Liberals blocked a few years back—we could send prairie oil to the Maritimes and over the Atlantic to break Europe’s dependence on Putin while we break our dependence on the United States.
We will knock down interprovincial trade barriers creating one open free market economy. Moving more goods, services, resources and people across the country will bring it home and bring us together as a country.
We will restore the promise of safe communities by stopping the crime—for a change. That means repealing the Liberal catch-and-release laws and imposing mandatory jail time for repeat offenders, banning hard drugs and offering generous recovery treatment to bring our loved ones home drug-free.
We will cap immigration, stop the radical and dangerous Liberal Century Initiative that would balloon Canada’s population to 100 million people, more than doubling the population of our cities during a housing crisis. We will keep out and deport criminals, stop fraud and crack down on bogus refugee claims. On immigration, like everything else, we will put Canada First. For a change.
We will rebuild our military for a change with new ice breakers, a new arctic base, more troops, and better support for our veterans.
Our troops and veterans inspire the best of what is Canada. They also remind us that we are a tough, rugged, strong, hearty people. We do not go looking for a fight. But we are always ready if one comes looking for us.
None of this will be easy. But making and defending Canada was not easy. And with change there is hope.
So I say: To the mother struggling to afford groceries, change is on the way.
To the 35-year-old who wants to move out of mom’s basement, buy a home and start a family, hope is on the way.
For the seniors, choosing between heating and eating, and for everyone who wonders what happened to the Canada they knew and love, hope and change are on the way.
A new Conservative government will restore the Canadian promise that the Liberals broke. The promise that anyone from anywhere can achieve anything—That hard work gets you a great life, in a beautiful house, on a safe street, wrapped in the protective arms of a solid border, defended by brave soldiers under our proud flag.
To preserve that flag and its promise we must work together, fight together and win together.
For our people.
For our land.
For our home. For Canada First – For a change.
Let’s bring it home.
David Clinton
You’re Actually Voting for THEM? But why?

By David Clinton
Putting the “dialog” back in dialog
I hate it when public figures suggest that serious issues require a “dialog” or a “conversation”. That’s because real dialog and real conversation involve bi-directional communication, which is something very few public figures seem ready to undertake. Still, it would be nice is there was some practical mechanism through which a conversation could happen.
It should be obvious – and I’m sure you’ll agree – that no intelligent individual will be voting in the coming federal election for any party besides the one I’ve chosen. And yet I’ve got a nagging sense that, inexplicably, many of you have other plans. Which, since only intelligent people read The Audit, leads me directly to an epistemological conflict.
I have my doubts about the prospects for meaningful leadership debates. Even if such events are being planned, they’ll probably produce more shouting and slogans than a useful comparison of policy positions.
And I have remarkably little patience for opinion polls. Even if they turn out to have been accurate, they tell us absolutely nothing about what Canadians actually want. Poll numbers may be valuable to party campaign planners, but there’s very little there for me.
If I can’t even visualize the thinking taking place in other camps, I’m missing a big part of Canada’s biggest story. And I really don’t like being left out.
So I decided to ask you for your thoughts. I’d love for each of you to take a super-simple, one question survey. I’m not really interested in how you’re planning to vote, but why. I’m asked for open-ended explanations that justify your choice. Will your vote be a protest against something you don’t like or an expression of your confidence in one particular party? Is it just one issue that’s pushing you to the polling station or a whole set?
I’d do this as a Substack survey, but the Substack platform associates way too much of your private information with the results. I really, really want this one to be truly anonymous.
And when I say this is a “super simple” survey, I mean it. To make sure that absolutely no personal data accompanies your answers (and to save me having to work harder), the survey page is a charming throwback to PHP code in all its 1996 glory.
So please do take the survey: theaudit.ca/voting.
If there are enough responses, I plan to share my analysis of patterns and trends through The Audit.
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