Earlier this week, I was a guest (representing the Centre for Inquiry Canada) on Ryan Jespersen's Real Talk program to discuss whether houses of worship in Canada should continue to enjoy tax-exempt status. I maintained that as a secular nation, Canada should not favour religious organizations over their secular peers via tax policy; Brian Dijkema of the Cardus Institute argued that directing money to churches is a good investment that benefits society.
Our ~40 minute conversation starts shortly after the 16:15 mark in the video below.
Some thoughts about the discussion:
- I find it interesting that Brian led off with criticizing the topic of the segment as an attack on religion, when instead we should have been talking about taxing venture capitalists. A few minutes later, he sounded like a VC himself when he defended investment in churches as having a great ROI. I was pleased that Ryan called this out as "whataboutism".
- The implicit assumption Brian makes, which I wish I had mentioned during the discussion, is that churches would cease doing their good deeds if they lost their tax exempt / charitable status. Either the good works of houses of worship are integral to their existence, in which case their good works would continue, or they only do it because of / in order to maintain beneficial tax treatment. If the former, there is no loss to society. If the latter, Canada would be better off if the additional tax revenue went to fund more (secular) food banks, counselling services, poverty reduction initiatives, and so on.
- Upon further reflection though, "good works" in this context is a red herring. Advancement of religion is assumed to be a social good in and of itself. Objective good works make for better PR, but are not relevant to qualify for charitable status. That religious organization can gain charitable status for evagelizing, while those seeking to gain adherence to other ideologies cannot, is the injustice CFIC is seeking to remedy. In principle, this can be addressed by granting charitable status to all proselytizers, or none. This is where Brian and I diverged. I believe those seeking to convert others should do so on their own dime. He clearly stated that he thinks all such organizations should be recognized as charities. Brian's position has the merit of consistency, but I believe it is poor public policy. (Those houses of worship that actually do good works like feeding the hungry should keep their charitable status - but for alleviating poverty, not for advancing religion. I did mention this, but could have emphasized it more.)
