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Canadian charities have a history of advocating for social and policy change. With the 1985 Income Tax Act, charities became restricted to using up to 10% of their resources toward nonpartisan political activities. They subsequently underwent an audit initiated by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2012. The legal climate changed again when the 10% rule was dropped in 2018, enabling charities to pursue political activities with no predefined limit. In this article, we examine grey literature on the political advocacy 'situation' of charities between 1983 and 2021, guided by Adele Clarke's situational analysis methodology (2005). Our findings and discussion center around the prevalent discursive positions taken and not taken in the situation and the assumptions and rationalities that inform them. We explore what turns out to be a non-linear situation influenced by an assemblage of rationalities and practices that primarily foster distrust in the charitable sector and call for enhanced discipline-oriented regulation. Particular attention is paid to the neoliberal logics that underlie these positions. Alternative conceptualizations of charitable sector advocacy are also offered through appeals to democratic participation and freedom of expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How is HIV/AIDS both exceptional yet no longer worthy of a distinct state response? Reflecting on state efforts in Canada to normalize HIV/AIDS and fold it into a more integrated response to sexually transmitted infections and bloodborne illnesses, we examine how 'end of HIV/AIDS exceptionalism' narratives obscure the new ways in which state power is being deployed such that, at the level of bodies and community organizations, actors are still subjected to exceptional state surveillance and control. In spite of continued efforts to normalize HIV/AIDS and blunt the advocacy of AIDS organizations, we argue that state power has intensified in ways that suggest that HIV/AIDS is still exceptional after all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]