Deina Warren Jun. 7, 2022
One of the key reasons for a new act was to reduce costs and increase clarity. The old act was mostly concerned with trusts from wills, but trusts are used more broadly. The new act fills gaps by including those broader uses. It also creates default rules so that people setting up trusts don’t have to include every single term; instead, they can rely on the legislation. The new act implemented recommendations from the Alberta Law Reform Institute. It generally follows a uniform trustee act proposed by the Uniform Law Conference of Canada. This group aims to harmonize laws across Canada.
For charities, the new act makes it easier to vary charitable trusts. It saves them from failing when the original purpose of the trust cannot be met and needs to be applied to a similar purpose. The court can also modify the purpose even where the original purpose hasn’t yet failed.
… on charitable trusts and how they differ from charitable corporations, see our Knowledge Base section on Establishing a Canadian Charity.
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