A Vancouver church may have violated Revenue Canada’s rules for non-profit organizations when it asked Tory MP Wai Young to speak to its congregation last month.

In a June 29 speech at Harvest City Church, Young, the MP for Vancouver South, compared the work on Bill C-51, the government’s anti-terrorism act, and other criminal justice legislation to the life of Jesus.

“I want to share with you what I think about what our government is doing in the same vein. Jesus served and acted to always do the right thing, not the most popular thing, and we know all the stories about the Bible that share with us about that. I want to let you know that our government will stand firm. We will always act and do the right thing,” Young said.

The Conservative/Jesus comparison, reported by left-leaning website pressprogess.ca, resulted in Young getting skewered on social media. While the public and pundits on social media had a few laughs with the #CPCJesus hashtag, no one was asking why a sitting MP was giving a politically charged speech in church.

The Harvest City Church is registered as a non-profit organization with the Canada Revenue Agency. According to CRA rules, non-profit groups are prohibited from taking part in partisan political activities. A partisan political activity, according to the CRA’s regulations, is one that involves direct or indirect support of, or opposition to, any political party or candidate for public office.

The CRA spells this rule out in one of the prohibited scenarios posted on its website, titled “Inviting competing election candidates to speak at separate events.” The CRA says because a “charity is not giving an equal opportunity for candidates seeking the same office to speak, it is possible to infer that the charity is indirectly supporting a particular candidate for public office and is therefore engaged in a prohibited partisan political activity.”

“Sounds to me like she has breached the spirit of the law. ... It sounds like her speech touched on a lot of hot button issues ... there was a lot more going on there than eternal salvation,” said Patrick Smith, professor of political science at Simon Fraser University. “She is a member of government that has been responsible for bringing in more stringent (CRA) rules to curtail mostly opposing views and now they appear to be going around those rules.”

In March, a University of Victoria study, commissioned by Vancouver-based environmental organization DeSmog Canada, stated that Prime Minister Stephen Harper government’s allocated $13.4 million to fund tax audits of “political activities” by non-profit groups that provide tax receipts for donations.

“They’ve whacked the environmental groups, saying their charitable status would be a risk if they continued to oppose pipelines and other things,” said Smith. “(The Conservatives) have set the bar pretty high for themselves ... If you are going to wrap yourself in holy cloth, which the Conservatives tend to do in making sure charities don’t engage in political activity, then you have to wear it when your own members stray.”

Vancouver South is one of the ridings expected to be a key battleground for the Oct. 19 federal election.

With files from the Ottawa Citizen and The Canadian Press

Sbrown@vancouversun.com

Twitter.com/BrownieScott

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