OTTAWA — Thanks to Canada’s month-long postal strike, Canada’s premiers are demanding the federal government extend this year’s charitable donation claim deadline.
In a Christmas Eve letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Council of the Federation Chair and Ontario Premier Doug Ford said that charities — and donors — really could use the break.
“Charitable organizations across Canada depend on year-end fundraising to support their operations throughout the year,” Ford wrote in the letter on behalf of Canada’s premiers, explaining that the postal strike prevented many donors from making their customary holiday donations.
“For this reason, we are joining charitable organizations from across the country in urging the federal government to extend the deadline for claiming 2024 charitable donations until the end of February 2025.”
Canada’s inflation-fuelled affordability crisis has made life unmanageable for countless Canadian families, with visits to food banks higher than they’ve ever been — an unprecedented need that Food Banks Canada described in October as “spiralling out of control.”
Earlier this month, the Fraser Institute reported that charitable giving in Canada hit a 20-year low.
Last week, The Salvation Army urged the federal government to do the same, saying that the strike had a profound impact on their annual donations, 65% of which come in the last eight weeks of the year.
“Our holiday fundraising has already fallen by 50%, and donors need more time to give,” Salvation Army spokesperson Lt.-Col. John Murray said in a press release.
“We request that Canadians be given additional time to support their favourite causes and assist charities in recovering from donation shortfalls.”
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