Why Does The “100 Million Canadians” Century Initiative Have Charitable Status?

Peter Stubbins is a director of Canadians for a Sustainable Society, an organization of activists and researchers opposed to Canada’s policy of immigration-driven population expansion, which they argue is inflicting serious damage on our environment and social welfare.

Stubbins has begun a campaign calling Century Initiative’s charitable status into question. He argues that Century Initiative, which has become notorious for advocating that Canada use immigration to raise the national population to 100 million by 2100, acts as a “highly partisan lobby group” rather than a legitimate charity.

He is starting off the campaign with a letter to Century Initiative CEO Lisa Lalande, urging the organization to voluntarily renounce their charitable status, and continue their activism under a more fitting guise such as a not-for-profit. Stubbins has informed them that, if they do not renounce their charitable status, he intends to contact the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) directly.

The key distinction here is that, in Canada, registered charities can issue official tax receipts, enabling donors to receive tax credits. Should the Century Initiative be able to issue such receipts to its donors?

Stubbins has shared with me a copy of his letter to Lalande, which I have included below (I have highlighted several key points):

“I am asking you, in your capacity of CEO of the Century Initiative, to resolve what I consider serious deficiencies in your organization’s charitable status as defined by the Canadian Revenue Agency.  Succinctly, your organization is primarily a highly partisan lobby group and not a charity. The issues that a charity pursues should be in the interest of most Canadians, they clearly are not. A charity should have parameters that show how its activities provide a benefit to the public. You have failed to meet most or any of the benchmarks of success that the population growth that your organization promotes is supposed to achieve. 

In promoting a population of 100 million Canadians by 2100, the banner objective of your organization, it has lobbied Corporate Canada and its media outlets, as well as the upper echelons of the Liberal Party of Canada, including former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Prime Minister Mark Carney. Century Initiative co-founders Mark Wiseman and Dominic Barton were among the lobbyists. The very high immigration levels under Justin Trudeau’s government were in line with your organization’s objectives but had major negative consequences for Canadians as measured by your own benchmarks. 

The Century Initiative, launched in 2011, arose from the Laurier Project that was established by the same two co-founders in 2009. Both are well known in the financial world. Mark Wiseman has worked in various top-level finance corporations. Dominic Barton worked at McKinsey and Company for 33 years and was Global Managing Director when he left in 2018. It is worth noting that former Liberal deputy prime minister and finance minister Chrystia Freeland was a board member of the original Laurier project. 

In December 2015, Justin Trudeau’s finance minister Bill Morneau announced the establishment of the Advisory Council on Economic Growth. Early in 2016, Morneau announced that it would be chaired by Dominic Barton and among the other members appointed was Mark Wiseman. To no one’s surprise, the Advisory Council advised the government to significantly increase immigration, which it did. 

In August 2018, one month after Dominic Barton left McKinsey and Company, the firm got its first lucrative contract with Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada. Between then and January 2023, IRCC would pay McKinsey $24.5 million in contracts. In September 2019, Trudeau announced the appointment of Barton as ambassador to China. It’s true that Barton had an impressive record in diplomacy, finance and consulting, but nevertheless the close ties of the Century Initiative’s two co-founders with the Liberal Party of Canada are glaringly evident. In 2025, Prime Minister Mark Carney appointed Wiseman to his Canada-US Council and in December of that year, appointed him as Canada’s next ambassador to the US. 

In addition to the high-level relationships of the Century Initiative’s co-founders with the Liberal Party, the organization has strong connections to the Globe and Mail and several of its journalists, including pro immigration John Ibbitson and Doug Saunders. One of Doug’s books titled Maximum Canada Toward A Country of a 100 Million, seems to dovetail nicely with the Century Initiative’s dangerous narrative. Since 2021, the Globe and Mail has been hosting an annual blue-chip conference for the Century Initiative where it can promote its views. The public can hear the presentations and interviews by joining an online webinar. 

Although the late former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, a Progressive Conservative, also supported the organization, he is now deceased. Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative leader of the official opposition, has spoken out vigorously against the Century Initiative and the real world difficulties of Trudeau era mass immigration, including lack of housing, health care and jobs. Since 2015, the Liberal Party of Canada is on track to implement the 100 million Canadians Century Initiative plan by 2100.

Not only is the Century Initiative clearly a partisan organization with close ties to the Liberal Party but as a so-called charity its objective of mass immigration has failed Canada. The failure of the mass immigration policy pursued by the Liberal Party under the apparent guidance of the Century Initiative is manifested in many ways. These include an unprecedented housing crisis; overwhelmed physical infrastructure, which is particularly evident in roads and public transport in large urban centers such as the Greater Toronto Area, Ottawa, and Vancouver; a healthcare system already under pressure stressed to the breaking point; the continuing loss of irreplaceable farmland, the destruction of our natural ecology and wildlife habitat; and more pollution. The recent rollback in the number of economic class and family class immigrants, asylum seekers, temporary workers and foreign students is a totally inadequate response to that failure. Startling, is Prime Minister Mark Carney’s stated intention of keeping new permanent resident growth through immigration at around 1% of the total population annually. And that is assuming if his administration and party have any sense of the number of undocumented immigrants in Canada.

The Century Initiative’s claim that the detrimental consequences of mass immigration, which surged under Justin Trudeau’s leadership, are the result of poor execution is risible. Even as its hand remains firmly on the immigration throttle, the Century Initiative now declares its innocence for the disaster it has created, as if its founders and many of its directors were not well-connected Liberal insiders, to whom the government even gave powerful advisory positions and prestigious appointments. 

Furthermore, the Century Initiative’s agenda of mass immigration, as stated, is pushed by many prominent journalists working for leading legacy media. Its corporate annual conventions are attended by blue chip insiders. The coalition between the political elite, corporate interests, and the legacy media could not be more obvious. Opinion surveys beginning in 2019 or even earlier indicate that Canadians have turned against immigration as their own falling standard of living exposes how the profiteers of growth are enriching themselves at the expense of working people. 

Therefore, I am asking the Century Initiative to voluntarily give up its charitable status. I recognize the importance of free speech and the free expression of ideas, however reckless they may be. If the Century Initiative wishes to pursue its ill-advised goal of an unsustainable population of 100 million, it should do so as a not-for-profit organization and not on the backs of Canadians. Even under the more “Liberal” interpretation of the Charity Act passed by the Trudeau government in 2018, a partisan lobby organization that promotes detrimental policies is not entitled to charitable status. I am writing this to you with the expectation of a response. In the interim I am contacting interested media. If the response is not positive, I will contact the Charities Directorate of the Canada Revenue Agency.  My intention is not to be threatening, you have the option of continuing your work as a not for profit corporation or in other forms. 

Yours sincerely, Peter Stubbins”