Research Streams
Charity and Law in Canada
Charity and Law in Canada
Project Description
Launched in Spring 2024, the Law Commission of Canada’s (LCC) Charity and Law in Canada project explores how law supports, shapes, and constrains charitable activity in Canada. Scoped and guided by an advisory committee of experts in Canadian charity governance, the projects brings together a wide range of perspectives and questions, including exploring legal definitions, co-existing sources of authority and governance, and the regulation of an extremely complex and multi-faceted set of activities, needs, and functions.
The project explores intersecting areas of law situated in taxation, national security, criminal responsibility, constitutional law, electoral governance, corporate structures, banking regulation, labour relations, estate planning, and civil liability.
Through research, dialogue, and engagement with people and organizations connected to the charitable sector, the project investigates how Canada’s legal framework can better reflect the realities and needs of contemporary charitable activity.
Charity is part of everyday life for people across Canada. Charitable behaviour, charitable giving, charitable interactions: all are understood to reflect human generosity and concern for collective welfare. Charity is central to an extraordinarily wide range of sectors, actions, commitments, and projects.
Charities are the organizations that make this possible. They too are part of everyday life for Canadians. From small to large, local to international, charities exercise significant responsibility in the governance and flourishing of a contemporary and diversified society.
With insights drawn from informed community engagement and a series of commissioned papers authored by experts from across the legal and charitable sectors, the project seeks to identify places where repair or reform of regulation or governance may be needed, where better knowledge and understanding of the charity ecosystem is possible, and where communication and cooperation between sectors and between charity and government should be improved. The LCC’s project underlines the critical role that charity and charities play in ensuring that the future of Canada and Canadians is inclusive, kind and bright.
Discussion Paper Series
The LCC has commissioned a series of discussion papers on topics ranging from the role of charitable organizations in Canada’s democracy to the history of charity and related concepts within Canada’s legal traditions, from potential directions for governance reform to relationships between legal rules and charitable behaviour. These papers will be published online in four volumes.
Volume 1
For an overview of Volume 1, please consult the collection of abstracts here.
Discretionary Decision-Making Under the Registered Charity Regime
Author: Kathryn Chan
Year: 2026
Hyperlink: PDF Version
Cat. JL3-3/6E-PDF
ISBN 978-1-100-00287-3
Sustaining Charity
Author: Peter C. Oliver
Year: 2026
Hyperlink: PDF version
Cat. JL3-3/3E-PDF
ISBN 978-1-100-00281-1
Seizing the Opportunity: A Path to Meaningful and Future-Focused Funding Reform for Canada's Charitable Sector
Author: Joanne Cave
Year: 2026
Hyperlink: PDF version
Cat. JL3-3/1E-PDF
ISBN 978-1-100-00214-9
Charity and the Charter: Aligning Charity Law with Constitutional Values, Rights, and Freedoms
Author: Benjamin Perrin
Year: 2026
Hyperlink: PDF version
Cat. JL3-3/5E-PDF
ISBN 978-1-100-00285-9
Canada's Legal Framework for Charity and Charities
Author: Donald J. Bourgeois
Year: 2026
Hyperlink: PDF version
Cat. JL3-3/2E-PDF
ISBN 978-1-100-00279-8
Community Engagement
Charity Briefs
Each discussion circle featured four to six participants representing a range of activities and actors within the charitable sector. The goal of the discussions was to hear directly from individuals working on the ground to deliver the support and services on which individuals and communities depend.
For each discussion circle, a Charity Brief was drafted collaboratively with participants which sets out the reflections, questions and challenges that were raised in the course of the exchange. Each Charity Brief highlights key interventions and considerations raised by participants through the following themes:
- Living Charity: what should the Canadian public understand about the nature and needs of charities and the charitable sector in general?
- Pursuing Charity: what challenges do charities face in their work that might act as a barrier to achieving their mission?
- Renewing Hope: what are the possibilities for the future in the charity sector and how should its importance be conveyed from generation to generation of Canadians?
Published Charity Briefs:
- Charity Brief: Ottawa Discussion Circle – 20 March 2025 (PDF version)
- Charity Brief: Niagara Discussion Circle – 29 May 2025 (PDF version)
- Charity Brief: Yellowknife Discussion Circle – 4 June 2025 (PDF version)
- Charity Brief: Charlottetown Discussion Circle – 19 September 2025 (PDF version)
- Charity Brief: St. John’s Discussion Circle – 26 November 2025 (PDF version)
- Charity Brief: Calgary Discussion Circle – 1 December 2025 (PDF version)
- Charity Brief: Montreal Discussion Circle – 30 January 2026 (PDF version)
Prison Law in Canada
Prison Law in Canada
The Law Commission of Canada will commission a series of reports on selected topics related to law in the lives of incarcerated individuals in Canada. This collection of critical papers will focus on specific issues and identify areas of, and paths to, reform.
Along with this collection, the LCC will host a series of focus circles. These focus circles will bring together individuals with varied expertise and experience related to incarceration and law. They will foster productive exchange, serve to enrich knowledge and understanding, and generate questions and issues deserving of attention and analysis.
Significance
Although the carceral system is central to our understanding of criminal justice, the spaces it occupies remain largely invisible to most Canadians; the justice systems that operate within detention centers, jails, prisons and penitentiaries are largely unseen and often not understood.
Through this project, the LCC seeks to illuminate these hidden spaces. It will do so by examining the meaning and effects of loss of freedom and conditions of incarceration, and the importance of hope to sustain incarcerated individuals both within the walls of their institutions and upon reentry into society. Issues of access to education and mental health services, of maintaining connections to communities outside prisons, of humanity and responsibility in carceral institutions are all significant for Canadians who care about law and justice.
The LCC’s Focus
The effects of incarceration are felt by prisoners, certainly, but prisoners carry their experiences from within these institutions into the outside world. In this way, the experiences of prisoners are inextricably linked with those of Canadians as a whole. This project will consider questions relating to state accountability and good governance of carceral institutions, as well as the role that the carceral system and the law relating to that system play in creating a just, safe and secure society.
As the LCC meets with participants in the correctional system, we will identify areas of research to pursue. Meetings will take the form of focus circles with prisoners, criminal lawyers, academics, correctional services, law enforcement, relevant governmental departments, representatives of civil society, and others with a stake, expertise, and interest in the world of corrections. As we learn about pressing issues that call for interrogation, the LCC will assess where its input will be most beneficial, and commission reports on those issues. Our reports will be based on solid empirical and jurisprudential research, take into account a variety of relevant academic disciplines, and will provide critical analysis and paths to reform.
Both the reports and the focus circles will reinforce and build on connections between fact-based, cross-disciplinary inquiry and concrete impact on people, institutions and Canadian society. The aim of this process is to produce a unique collection of high quality, interdisciplinary, and practice-relevant reports on issues requiring attention, reflection and action now and into the future.
The Law Commission’s prison law project will shine a light on incarceration in Canada as a place to examine living law, pursuing justice and renewing hope.
Beyond Tomorrow Reports
Beyond Tomorrow Reports
Law for Canada’s Next Generations
The Law Commission of Canada accepts proposals for Beyond Tomorrow Reports on an ongoing basis throughout the year.
In early 2025, the Law Commission of Canada launched a series entitled Beyond Tomorrow Reports dedicated to exploring directions in law for Canada’s coming generations.
The Law Commission, an independent and non-partisan agency, is committed to engaging the people of Canada in the ongoing and dynamic evolution of law. Since its restart in 2023, the Commission has held "Listen and Learn" sessions throughout the country. The resulting "What We Heard" documents provide an overview of the preoccupations and projects of individuals and institutions as they imagine and construct responses to future challenges. We have learned from participants the importance of embracing complicated conversations, addressing breakdown of trust, contributing to common endeavours, and fostering constructive change. The Beyond Tomorrow Reports initiative extends our "listen and learn" approach by issuing an open invitation to scholars and experts across Canada to submit proposals within the Commission’s framework for engaging with law and shaping law reform.
Commissioned and published on a periodic basis, the Beyond Tomorrow Reports series will identify and address challenges and issues in law for Canada’s next generation and beyond. Authors are invited to reflect on and demonstrate law's influence and impact with respect to the building and strengthening of communities. Each report will draw on critical informed research to imagine and articulate constructive pathways and possibilities for law reform in the future. Collaborative engagement with community-based actors will be incorporated into the production of the reports. This signature combination of research, outreach and transformation underscores the Law Commission’s accountability to the people of Canada. We look forward to supporting and sharing these reports on law for Canada’s future generations.
Released Reports
Beyond Tomorrow on Immigration: Legal Impacts of the Canada-Québec Accord relating to Immigration and Temporary Admission of Aliens for Federal and Québec Immigration Law and the International Student Program
Author: France Houle
Year: 2026
Hyperlink: PDF version
Cat. JL3-4/1E-PDF
ISBN 978-1-100-00228-6
ISSN 3111-3494
France Houle’s Beyond Tomorrow Report provides an explanation and analysis of the division of immigration powers between the governments of Canada and Quebec. The report gives readers a comprehensive understanding of the legal and institutional framework and history underpinning the 1991 Canada-Quebec Accord relating to Immigration and Temporary Admission of Aliens, tracing how Quebec evolved from having a consultative role to genuine decision-making authority over the selection of economic immigrants to the province and examining why this two-level governance model has struggled to keep pace with the rapid growth of temporary migration. The Report includes a case study of the development, implementation, and eventual breakdown of Quebec’s International Student Program, which highlights “the limits of a system characterized by the coexistence of ill-defined objectives between the governments of Canada and Québec in the area of temporary immigration.”
The Report makes three principal suggestions to improve public confidence in immigration management:
an additional protocol to the Canada–Québec Accord, to develop more precise legal parameters for federal and Québec jurisdiction over temporary immigration;
a memorandum of agreement with all Canadian provinces and territories to consider Canada’s social, economic, and demographic needs in relation to permanent and temporary immigration; and
the opening of public dialogue (perhaps by a Royal Commission of Inquiry) around immigration issues.
The Report might inspire readers to ask the following questions about federalism, responsibility for immigration policy, and future directions for provincial-federal power sharing:
What future pathways might there be towards building intergovernmental partnerships and agreements among provinces, territories and the federal government?
What form should / could public dialogue take for a discussion of Canada’s social, economic and demographic needs in relation to permanent and temporary immigration?
More Information on the Series
About Forthcoming Commissioned Reports (updated October 2026)
Emmanuelle Bernheim and Jean-Laurent Domingue
Emmanuelle Bernheim and Jean-Laurent Domingue focus on the use of coercion within legal frameworks governing involuntary psychiatric and addiction treatment in Canada. The report provides a critical perspective on justifications found in scientific literature for coercion in psychiatric and addiction treatment. The authors invite readers to imagine the development of public policy to ensure respect for the dignity of individuals in Canada living with mental health conditions or addiction issues.
Stephanie Ben-Ishai
Stephanie Ben-Ishai examines how Canadian corporate restructuring processes under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act are being used to address complex “wicked” problems, such as mass torts, due to the advantageous procedural mechanisms offered by the statute. The report promises to give readers a better understanding of how this use differs from the Act’s intended function of avoiding the economic and social costs of liquidation and promoting business survival. The report seeks to help readers imagine future pathways to ensure that proceedings related to corporate restructuring remain inclusive, accountable, and future-ready.
Information for Applicants
Report Format
Beyond Tomorrow Reports consist of:
- a research-based text of 13,000-15,000 words in length (excluding notes)
- a related outreach module (e.g., workshop, public presentation, community engagement) that includes at least one community-based actor or partner
- a brief written description (approximately 1,000 further words) of the complementary public engagement component
$13,000 CAD will be paid to the author(s) to support research, writing, and related outreach for each Report.
Parameters
Commissioned principal authors will be established scholars at Canadian universities either at a Faculty of Law or in a related academic Department and Faculty. Proposals that pair an early-career scholar with the principal established scholar will be considered.
Proposals consisting of the following elements should be submitted for consideration by the Law Commission of Canada at projects-projets@lcc-cdc.gc.ca:
- A tentative title and 300-word abstract for the proposed Beyond Tomorrow Report;
- A 1,000-word outline and summary of the proposed report;
- A 250-word description of the complementary community outreach module;
- A preliminary bibliography of between 5 and 10 pertinent sources for each author;
- A current CV for the author (or for each co-author);
- A list of up to 5 of the author’s (or of each co-author’s) publications relevant to this work.
Selection Process
Proposals will be evaluated by a project-specific advisory panel of the Law Commission of Canada. Review will take place on a rolling basis, with the aim of commissioning Beyond Tomorrow Reports at least twice a year.
Evaluation of proposals and the commissioning of Beyond Tomorrow Reports will be guided by the Law Commission’s framework, notably:
- the Law Commission’s three-part raison d’être – living law, pursuing justice, renewing hope;
- the four-point compass of the Law Commission’s work – “Dream, Repair, Build, Share”; and
- the Law Commission’s “Intersections” framework for law and law reform, shaped by co-existing and interacting substantive domains, structures, systems and jurisdictions.
To be considered, a proposal to contribute a Beyond Tomorrow Report should demonstrate:
- Ambition and capacity to explore underexamined issues and sites in law.
- Embrace of complexity of the issues at stake and an ability to explain and work with that complexity (including dimensions along a spectrum from global to local).
- Research methodology that integrates multiple disciplines, sectors and/or legal traditions.
- Commitment to articulating reform pathways in the ongoing evolution of law.
- A plan for public engagement in the form of a partnership or outreach activity including at least one community-based actor.
For further context on the LCC, potential contributors are directed to Part II (Rebuild, Resituate, Reimagine) of the Law Commission Reflection Paper: Recall to Reimagine: (Re)Creating the Law Commission of Canada – Se souvenir pour réinventer : la (ré)création de la Commission du droit du Canada (Ottawa: Law Commission of Canada, 2024).
The LCC aims to notify applicants of its decision within 6-8 weeks of receipt of a submitted proposal.
Upon being commissioned to produce a Report, authors are expected to submit the complete text to the LCC within six months.
All published Beyond Tomorrow Reports will be publications of the Law Commission of Canada in which the Law Commission of Canada will hold copyright.
Questions may be addressed to: projects-projets@lcc-cdc.gc.ca.
Canada and International Law
Canada and International Law
Canada today is situated at the intersection of the post-WW2 rules-based international order and shifting geopolitical challenges of the current moment. This point of intersection offers an opportunity to explore the significance of international law for Canada and Canadians. In taking up that opportunity, and for the first time in the history of federal law reform agencies in Canada, the Law Commission of Canada (LCC) embarks upon a research project fully focused on international law.
International law matters to Canada and its citizens. It encompasses wide-ranging norms, customs, and principles that influence domestic legislation, government policy, national jurisprudence, the rights and obligations of Canadians, as well as Canada’s position on the international stage, in a deeply interconnected world.
Leading Canadian scholars have been invited by the Law Commission of Canada to investigate developments in international law from a Canadian standpoint. As commissioned authors, they will produce substantial research papers examining:
- The role and effect of international law in Canada; and
- Issues in international law of particular significance to Canadians.
The LCC’s project underlines the significance of international law as an intersection for Canadian law by exploring a set of practical and theoretical crossings that Canada traverses, integrates and is shaped by. We can imagine this intersection with the vertical axis showing where international law enters and reshapes Canadian legal orders, and the horizontal axis mapping the geopolitical, state-to-state interactions and frameworks that constitute and challenge the international legal order. Papers tracing a vertical axis from international law to its integration into Canadian domestic law will take on topics ranging from the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and international human rights law, to the extradition regime, and accountability for core crimes. Papers engaged horizontally on issues in international law of particular significance to Canada, will include the use of force, migration, climate change, the Arctic, and international trade.
A small advisory committee of leading international law experts in the Canadian legal academy informed and supported the shape and scope of the project, and the Law Commission acknowledges its compelling guidance and contributions.