The past year has been challenging for the CCPA, culminating in the closure of the B.C. office in February 2025. This letter aims to provide more information and clarify for our supporters what happened from the perspective of the national board.
As directors of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, we have a fiduciary responsibility to steward and oversee the entire organization, to ensure we are following our charitable objectives, and to uphold the laws to which we are accountable as a national charity. Failure to do so could put the CCPA at tremendous risk.
The CCPA is a national organization with provincial offices that have significant flexibility in setting research priorities, communications and outreach while operating in accordance with CCPA’s charitable objectives. Our challenge is that we must manage the national organization such that we are compliant with charitable law, while also balancing autonomy within our provincial offices.
Over the past decade, B.C. office leadership requested more and more operational and financial independence. While the board, staff and offices worked hard to modify our structure to respond to these demands, there were limits to what a charitable entity could accommodate under the law. Incredible amounts of time across the organization has been spent to reach a workable compromise that fits within our legal parameters as a national charity.
September 2024
The B.C. office’s management and steering committee requested to become a separate legal entity, with an affiliation with the CCPA, three times: in 2018, in 2021-22, and finally in 2024. Each time, questions were raised by the board and staff about donor communications in B.C., finances, and legal compliance. The first two times, more flexibility and relative autonomy was provided to the B.C. office through new governance arrangements to avoid separation. Further arrangements were made, but by 2024, the CCPA Board had reached its limit on what it could provide that office and still meet our fiduciary and legal duties.
In September 2024, B.C. board representatives circulated a motion to the CCPA board requesting to negotiate a legal separation. The motion was a surprise: it was served just as we felt we were coming to an agreement to make the latest iteration of a new autonomy framework work. B.C. unionized staff were only informed of this motion after the fact, plunging them into a challenging period of uncertainty about the future of their jobs and income.
Prior to making any decision, the board sought legal advice and an analysis of organizational finances, to ensure it was upholding its fiduciary duties. This was met with resistance from B.C. leadership, who had the unrealistic view that separating 28 years of common operations and infrastructure, while meeting our legal and fiduciary responsibilities, could happen seamlessly and quickly within a matter of weeks. When the board decided that it needed more time—tabling the motion for independence until legal and financial advice could be sought—it was publicly accused of refusing to negotiate, which has never been the position of the board.
To advance their position, the B.C. Federation of Labour informed the board in September that the B.C. unions that had funded the work of the CCPA in B.C. would move their support to another charity (then called the BCCPAS, now recognized as the BCSPS), which had been established by senior B.C. management in 2018—without the knowledge of the CCPA board. While largely inactive until 2022, by December 2023 it held more than $600,000 according to public charitable filings.
The financial pressure was too onerous
This created a financial crisis in the B.C. office, which pushed the costs of the B.C. operations onto the shoulders of the CCPA’s national board. The resulting organization-wide financial crisis threatened to plunge the whole CCPA into insolvency in a matter of months. To mitigate this financial harm, in December 2024, the board voted to close the B.C. office. To respect the B.C. Labour Code’s 60-day notice period for a significant change to work, the closure was scheduled to happen on February 3, 2025. The Members Council was informed of this decision at its December 2024 meeting.
Maintaining B.C. jobs was a priority for both organizations and bargaining agent Unifor. B.C. staff were informed of the board’s decision, and given the opportunity to stay with the CCPA. For those who chose to leave to work for the BCSPS, the CCPA exceeded its employment obligations related to the end of their work with us. The CCPA also funded full severance for newer employees. In addition, the CCPA is taking responsibility for substantial residual costs and liabilities incurred by the B.C. office.
We remain committed to our work in B.C.
As we restructure to ensure the health and sustainability of the CCPA, we remain committed to continuing our work in B.C. We are thrilled that Senior Economist Marc Lee has continued his employment with us and we plan to hire another researcher who can focus on provincial issues. The CCPA will always be an independent, progressive and non-partisan research organization that isn’t afraid to challenge power of any stripe. We commit our intention to continue this work in B.C., just as in the rest of Canada. With the shifting geopolitical landscape, there are pressing political and economic issues that need the full focus of our time and resources and we will ensure this work is done with the cautions and prudence required of a national charity.
As a board, we are focused on due diligence, ensuring our organization is run effectively, efficiently, and operating within the boundaries of charitable law. Attempting to accommodate an increasingly autonomous B.C. office within the boundaries of a federal charity became impossible, particularly after the additional cautions and prudence required as a result of the audits imposed on charities like the CCPA during the Harper Conservative government in the previous decade.
We have no desire to engage in negative back-and-forth. CCPA staff will continue the important work for which we are known, and which has never been more necessary. Despite the difficulties of this past year, the way that we have reacted has made CCPA stronger than ever. We have hired a new executive director, the identity of whom will be announced soon, and our researchers are producing the best and most critical work in Canada related to tariffs, trade and how Canada should operate in a new economic paradigm driven by the whims of Donald Trump.
We are both new to these longstanding tensions, having both been elected in the past year, and we’re proud that we’ve been able to manage this crisis with an eye above all else, to protect the future of this vital organization.
For more information about the CCPA’s research, our plans in B.C., or about your support for our work, please reach out to us at [email protected]
