A new study has found that the number of Canadians donating to charity, measured as a percentage of all tax filers, has declined to the lowest point in 20 years.
The Fraser Institute released this year’s Generosity Index, which measures the proportion of Canadians filing donations to charities in their taxes and the amount that Canadians donate as a portion of their income. The index shows that Canada’s rate of charitable giving is on a continued decline.
The study found that in 2022, the last year of comparable data, 17.1% of Canadian tax filers claimed a donation to a charity. In 2004, when charitable generosity peaked in Canada, 25.4% of Canadians donated.
“This decline in charitable giving means that there are fewer resources available to charity, and this is going to make it more difficult for charities to help their communities,” Grady Munro, a policy analyst at the Fraser Institute and co-author of the study, told True North in an interview.
The study looks only at the amount of income donated and the number of Canadians donating rather than the average charitable donations of each province to avoid a bias towards provinces with more income.
For example, Alberta donated the highest average amount, $3,438. However, it tied in fifth place with British Columbia for the number of its residents donating to charities, with 16.4%.
In comparison, Quebec residents spent an average of $1,094 on charity. Quebec ranked third in the population, donating with 17.4%, but ranked low in income percentage donated, with 0.26% donated on average.
In the last decade, the percentage of Canadian tax filers donating to charity dropped from 22.4% in 2012 to 17.1% in 2022. The amount as a portion of income Canadians donated also dropped from 0.55% in 2012 of their income to 0.50% in 2022.
Even the highest-ranking province on the list for both measures saw declines in the amount as a portion of income and the number of people donating.
Ranking in first place, 19.3% of Manitobans listed a donation to a charitable organization in their 2022 taxes. However, the number of Manitobans donating still marked a decline of 24.3% compared to 2014 and a decrease of 2.4% from the previous year.
Manitobans also ranked the highest in the percentage of their income donated, with 0.71% of income donated on average. Despite ranking high in this way, the amount of income donated still represents an 8.2% decline in aggregate donations since 2012, a 3.3% drop from 2021.
Munro said it’s unclear how much taxes played a role in Manitoba’s ranking so high, as it’s measured around the middle of the pack in terms of tax rates compared to the other provinces.
New Brunswick had the lowest number of the provinces, with 14.7% of its residents donating to a charitable organization in 2022—a 28.1% decrease from a decade earlier and 4.6% from the previous year.
When territories are accounted for, Nunavut residents had the lowest donation rate, with 5.2% claiming a donation to a charity in 2022, a record 43.3% decrease since a decade earlier and a 5% increase from the year before.
Although the study didn’t examine why the provinces and territories performed so well in their ranking, Munro noted several likely factors. He told True North that the amount of after-tax income, the population’s age, and the religious affiliation rates all likely play a role in Canada’s charitable decline.
“After-tax income is a big factor,” Munro said. “Past research has shown that governments can encourage charitable giving by pursuing policies that promote economic growth, job creation and higher wages for people.”
He referenced a previous study by the Fraser Institute which found that every Canadian province had less median employment income than each of the US states in 2022.
“So we certainly know that incomes are falling behind, and we know that after-tax income plays a factor in charitable giving,” he said. “But in this research, we can’t say whether or not, for certain, there’s a correlation.”
As the last data available is from 2022, while the economy was recovering from the pandemic lockdowns, Munro remained hopeful that charitable giving in Canada could return during Christmas’s peak giving season.
