Discursive positions on charitable sector advocacy in Canada: a situational analysis

ABSTRACT

Canadian charities have a history of advocating for social and policy change. With the 1985 Income Tax Act, charities became restricted to using up to 10% of their resources toward nonpartisan political activities. They subsequently underwent an audit initiated by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2012. The legal climate changed again when the 10% rule was dropped in 2018, enabling charities to pursue political activities with no predefined limit. In this article, we examine grey literature on the political advocacy ‘situation’ of charities between 1983 and 2021, guided by Adele Clarke’s situational analysis methodology (2005). Our findings and discussion center around the prevalent discursive positions taken and not taken in the situation and the assumptions and rationalities that inform them. We explore what turns out to be a non-linear situation influenced by an assemblage of rationalities and practices that primarily foster distrust in the charitable sector and call for enhanced discipline-oriented regulation. Particular attention is paid to the neoliberal logics that underlie these positions. Alternative conceptualizations of charitable sector advocacy are also offered through appeals to democratic participation and freedom of expression.

KEYWORDS:

• Political advocacy
• charities
• situational analysis
• discourse analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. We found the references to noncompliance and incompetence to be closely related in our data, so they are discussed together in this article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [817124].