Charities in N.B. report lower year-end giving during Canada Post strike

Some New Brunswick charities are reporting significant declines in end-of-year giving as a result of the recent strike by workers at Canada Post.

They're anxious to see whether an extension of the deadline to make donations for the 2024 tax year will help make up for it.

"With 85 per cent of our donations received through the mail, we were significantly impacted by the postal strike," said Melanie Langille, president and CEO of N.B. Lung.

The health promotion group's appeal for donations during the holiday season usually generates more than half of its annual fundraising revenue, she said.

Mail-outs usually reach donors in late November, said Langille, but 2024's only began arriving in early January.

The Saint John Regional Hospital Foundation confirmed it has taken a hit from the postal strike.

"The total number of gifts across all programs, between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31, was down by 25% year-over-year," Sarah Peiser, the foundation's director of communications, said in an email.

Revenue from direct mail donations declined by 57 per cent compared to the previous year, she said.

To ease those effects, federal Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc announced in late December that the deadline for claiming charitable donations on tax returns would be extended through to the end of February.

The hospital foundation is hoping to see a boost during its winter campaigning.

It's raising money for two apheresis machines, used for cancer treatments and stem cell transplants, in a six-week campaign culminating in a radiothon Feb. 13. Once that's over, they'll talk up the end-of-February tax receipt deadline, said Peiser.

N.B. Lung mobilized this week to inform donors of the extension, said Langille, who has high hopes for January and February donations.

"We know that income tax deductions are a motivator for many people to donate to charities," she said.

Other New Brunswick charities, like the New Brunswick SPCA, were still tallying year-end receipts and holding off on any focused campaigning in light of the announced extension.

"It's a bit uncertain right now," spokesperson Alex Davis said in an email last week.

That uncertainty stems from the federal Liberal government's vulnerable political position.

When Parliament was prorogued, legislation related to the extension had not been passed or even introduced.

CBC News asked the Finance Department and Canada Revenue Agency for confirmation and did not receive any by publication time.

Toronto charity lawyer Mark Blumberg believes the extension probably will go ahead as announced, but advises charities not to count on it.

"This is a particularly awkward situation," he said.

"Finance has sent a message that basically this is going to happen … but we haven't heard yet from the Canada Revenue Agency, which is responsible for implementing the extension."

It's not unusual for CRA to put tax policy changes into effect before legislation has been passed, but normally the legislation has at least been brought forward, said Blumberg.

Nevertheless, he doesn't think any political party will go back on it because millions of people are now relying on it.

The bigger questions are whether people will donate as a result and how it will impact charities, he said.

There are 86,000 charities in Canada and each may be affected differently, said Blumberg.

They may have to bring in computer programmers to rejig their systems and issue multiple receipts instead of one per calendar year, he said.

His advice to most charities is to continue to issue receipts in the normal way, dating the donation whenever it was received and not Dec. 31, as some thought they would have to do.

A notable exception to his business-as-usual advice is for charities that typically send out just one receipt per year, such as churches, said Blumberg.

They would be better off issuing a separate receipt for January and February, he suggested.If not, they're apt to get hundreds of people asking for them in March to file their tax returns..

Blumberg doesn't think moving the deadline was a great idea.

The Dec. 31 deadline is simple and generally works for charities and donors, he said.

He would have preferred to see effort put into promoting online donations as a way to support charities hurt by the postal strike.

He is not confident the extended deadline will make much of a difference to charity revenues.

He thinks tax purposes are one of the lesser reasons why people donate.

For Fredericton Homeless Shelters, the extension doesn't mean much, said Warren Maddox, executive director.

"Our year end is still Dec. 31, irrespective of what the tax receipting deadline is. So, we will write the tax receipts based on when they come in and the donor can decide if they want the donation to fall in 2024 or 2025," he said.

The organization received more end-of-year donations than expected.

"We did some quick foot work and managed to make up for the loss by relying heavily on other revenue streams," he said. 

"We have 48 revenue streams so one can falter or fail and the other streams will pick up the loss…or at least that is the theory."

A few envelopes to solicit donations were mailed after the postal strike ended, he said, but most were cancelled. 

"This means we lost the mail-out but we saved on not being billed for the delivery. So, we saved about $11,000 on postage."