March 24, 2011 – With its 2011 Budget and Economic Action Plan, the minority Conservative Government continued its recent practice of devising targeted, modest, niche initiatives that would lend themselves to a “retail” political sales campaign. In other words, lots of carefully calibrated initiatives designed to appeal to either the base of the Conservative party or key swing voters and/or demographic groups. In fact, while the prospects for passage of the budget are virtually non-existent, some of these policy and spending announcements are likely to feature as planks in an eventual Conservative Party election platform. The prospects for a Spring election are now, it would appear, very good.

Sport and community-based recreation featured in the budget in a modest way. The following points summarize the main items of interest:

– The Budget announces an increase of $800,000 a year to Special Olympics Canada to assist those athletes with travel costs. This measure will be funded internally through Sport Canada’s existing budget;

– The Budget allocates $20 M over two years to youth crime prevention programs in order to encourage youth to make smart choices and either resist gang involvement or exit gangs. Among the qualifying activities that this funding will support are community-based sporting opportunities for youth. This initiative, if successful in its roll-out and implementation, may highlight some of the benefits and virtues of the philosophy underpinning the Working Together Initiative (WTI);

– In a related vein, the Government flagged its commitment to supporting government/community partnerships in innovative new ways. Under the heading <>, the Government announced that it is committed to enabling communities to tackle local challenges and to test new approaches to improve performance. The lead on this file will be the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development. Clearly the WTI fits squarely within this new approach and this will provide further impetus for the sporting community to look for new ways in which sport and recreation can be used to address societal challenges confronting groups such as the homeless, at-risk youth and the long-term unemployed;

– The Government has announced $100 M to help establish the Canada Brain Research Fund to improve Canada’s capabilities in neuroscience. In addition to supporting research into brain disorders and mental illnesses, the program will also support research into brain injuries. Such research might conceivably consider the impacts of concussions, which both recreational and high performance athletes frequently sustain. This will add to the body of knowledge in this area and may be ultimately beneficial to coaches, trainers, athletes and parents;

– The Budget proposes to provide $10 M over two years to increase funding for the New Horizons for Seniors Program. This program helps ensure seniors can benefit from, and contribute to, the quality of life in their communities through active living and participation in social activities. The possibility exists to perhaps build a bridge to physical activity under the auspices of this program.

– The Budget announced $5 M to help support the commemorations and festivals that will mark the 100th Grey Cup anniversary in 2012;

– The Government has announced a series of changes to the charitable status of Registered Canadian Amateur Athletic Associations requiring them to “have the promotion of amateur athletics in Canada on a nation-wide basis as their exclusive purpose and exclusive function rather than their primary purpose and function.” Consistent with the regime for registered charities, certain related activities will be permitted. RCAAAs will be permitted to sell merchandise related to their sport and to engage in limited non-partisan political activities. Under this proposal, RCAAAs will be subject to the same regulatory sanctions as registered charities for breach of these requirements, namely a monetary penalty, the suspension of qualified donee status or the revocation of registration. Stakeholders will have until June 30th to provide feedback on the introduction of an “exclusivity of purpose and function” test for RCAAAs;

– Budget 2011 provides the Canada Revenue Agency with the authority to refuse to register a Canadian amateur athletic association or charity, or act against an already registered one, where there is a high risk of abuse as a result of individuals being involved in the management of the organization (or on its board or among its trustees) who have a history of fraud, misuse of charitable resources or other related contraventions.

These last two measures are clearly more coercive in spirit and may result in additional regulatory obstacles (increased compliance costs in terms of time, paperwork etc.) for NSOs.

Finally the creation of the new 15 percent Children’s Arts Tax Credit, provided on up to $500 of eligible expenses for programs associated with children’s artistic, cultural, recreational and developmental activities mirrors the Children’s Fitness Tax Credit. This is a laudable initiative however, once again, the tax credit is non-refundable which regrettably limits its usefulness to lower income families whose children presently exhibit lower rates of participation and enrolment in such activities (including sport and recreational activities as well.)