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Not For Profit - What it Means for the ECP Centre
- The ECP Center is a Federal Non-Profit Corporation
- The ECP Centre is NOT a Registered Charity
This means that we CANNOT issue receipts that you can treat as charitable donations for tax purposes.
The federal government has stringent regulations governing "charitable status." At least two of their restrictions are relevant to the way the ECP Centre operates. They prevent the Centre from qualifying for this charitable status if we are to move forward with the vision that God has given us and the work that is so important to you in defending the Christian freedom of speech, religion and expression in the public square. - A charitable organisation is required to limit its political activity to no more than 10% of its work. Most of the ECP Centre's work is political in nature, or would be deemed as such, by government officials - certainly much more than 10% of our work is political.
- A charity must be non-partisan, even in its political activity. The ECP Centre's work would probably be recognised as non-partisan under widely accepted definition of the term. CRA (Canada Revenue Agency) officials, however, have recently redefined the term to conform to secularist dogma. They see all of life as political, hence if you advocate for a particular position on marriage, for example, and that position is consistent with the position of a political party, your activity, particularly during an election, is assumed to be partisan.
This is clearly an inaccurate - and offensive - definition of the term, yet by way of this perspective, CRA officials several years ago approached the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada and Calgary's Roman Catholic bishop Fred Henry with concerns that their strong pro-marriage advocacy during an election violated their obligation to be non-partisan.
At the end of the day, our loyalty to God's call and responsibility to you, our members and supporters, is of greater importance to us than subjugating ourselves to a stifling governmental framework.
We trust in the blessings of God and the faithfulness of His people to meet our needs even though we know that it will require a greater sacrifice from you, our supporters. It is not trite to remember that sometimes we have to wait till the next life to receive our reward for the sacrifices we make here in advancing the Kingdom of God.
We appreciate your understanding in the matter. For further information, please email us with your questions at info@ecpcentre.org.
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