Taxing charities, imposer les organismes de bienfaisance: Harmonization and dissonance in Canadian charity law

For many years, the determination of which organizations should qualify for the significant tax benefits accorded to "registered charities" ( "organismes de bienfaisance enregistres") under the Canadian Income Tax Act has been based, in all provinces, on the concept of charity developed by the English common law of charitable trusts. However, there are other sources of meaning for the concept of "charity" ( "bienfaisance") in Canada, including ancient, civil law sources that continue to form part of the basic law of Quebec.;This study challenges the longstanding, unijural approach to the registered charity provisions on the basis of the constitutional division of powers, and the federal government's commitment to respecting bijuralism and bilingualism in its legislative texts. It explores the diverse, legal sources concerning charity and the devotion of property to the public good that form part of the law of property and civil rights in the provinces. Finally, it examines how these diverse provincial sources might affect the current approach to the registered charity provisions, and the project of ensuring that federal laws are accessible to each of Canada's Francophone civil law, Francophone common law, Anglophone civil law and Anglophone common law audiences.