The House of Commons Finance Committee’s proposed pre-budget 2025 recommendations — 429 and 430 — to strip pro-life and faith-based non-profit groups of their charitable status has been on the mind of Phil Horgan this election cycle.

Neither of the two leading candidates for prime minister, Mark Carney of the Liberals and Pierre Poilievre of the Conservatives, have uttered a syllable about this matter since the writ dropped on March 23, and that concerns the president and general counsel of the Catholic Civil Rights League (CCRL).  

In an email to The Catholic Register, Horgan said the proposals represent “a huge risk to the care of the most vulnerable and needy in our country by attacking groups in the charitable sector which perform this important work.”

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Horgan reached out to his own MP, Liberal Juliana Dzerowicz of the Toronto Davenport riding, to hear her appraisal of the situation since she sits on the standing committee. He characterized the response he received as “troubling.”

“Please be assured that religious freedom is protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the Government of Canada will always protect Canadians’ right to practise their religion freely,” stated Dzerowicz in the email to Horgan.

Horgan said this “sounds rather duplicitous when the committee seeks to undercut upwards of 35,000 religious charities from continued charitable status.”

Earlier this month, the CCRL published a call to action urging “all supporters, friends and all concerned Canadians to contact their local federal election candidates to determine their positions on these critical issues.” The organization entreated Catholics to pose two direct questions to the candidates before election day on April 28:

• Do you support the continued recognition of religion as a basis for charitable status?
• Will you oppose any attempt to revoke charitable status based on a faith-based organization’s religious beliefs?

The CCRL noted in its April 4 statement that recommendations 429 and 430 “are reminiscent of the Trudeau government’s previous imposition of ideological conformity through the Canada Summer Jobs program, where organizations were required to attest support for abortion in order to receive funding — an action that the CCRL strongly opposed as a violation of conscience rights and freedom of religion.”

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Regarding expression rights, Horgan took notice of Poilievre’s pledge following the French-language federal leaders’ debate on April 16 to repeal Bill C-11 (Online Streaming Act) and C-18 (Online News Act). CCRL warned in 2022 and 2023 that these Internet regulatory measures could “lead to greater incursions to our freedom of speech and freedom of conscience and religion.”

Poilievre said “we will repeal Bill C-11, the censorship law. We will also repeal the censorship of Canadian news on web platforms like Facebook and Instagram."

“We will fight back against any Orwellian online censorship law, like the one the previous Liberal government instituted. It was designed to create the possibility of pre-emptive arrests of people where you can be arrested if you were suspected of, some time in the future, planning to say something harmful online, you could be under a peace bond.”

Poilievre was alluding to Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act, which became null and void once Parliament was prorogued on Jan. 6 following Justin Trudeau’s resignation as Prime Minister.

Supporters note the legislation’s efforts to reduce exposure to content deemed harmful to children by seeking to compel new duty of care requirements on social media giants. Critics expressed concern over proposed amendments to Section 320 of the Criminal Code. According to the proposed amendment, anyone who commits a transgression based on hatred “of race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation or gender identity or expression” is guilty “of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for life.”

During a campaign rally in Hamilton on April 10, Carney told the crowd his government would “take action” against harmful online content.

“There are many serious issues that we’re dealing with,” he said. “One of them is the sea of misogyny, anti-Semitism, hatred and conspiracy theories — this sort of pollution online that washes over our virtual borders from the United States.”

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The 60-year-old added that he can tolerate theories about himself, but “the more serious thing is when it affects how people behave — when Canadians are threatened going to their community centres or their places of worship or their school or, God forbid, when it affects our children.”

Whether that action means a resuscitation of Bill C-63 remains to be seen.