Public Safety committee  I think if the community thinks it has an innovation it wants to apply and partners are prepared to come together, with or without a level of government, I guess that's for the community to decide whether it has an innovation that it wants to apply. What are the most appropriate areas or the most appropriate partners?

Public Safety committee  In accordance with a Treasury Board directive, every department follows its own evaluation process. It depends on the program, but usually, a program is evaluated after five years, for example, using pre-determined criteria. The department always has a committee that examines the various aspects of the program to figure out what the criteria should be.

Public Safety committee  We haven't formally discussed it in the context of our committees. As I said, some provinces are already showing an interest. Some have launched these types of strategies. And that has given us an opportunity to talk to them about their experiences, their expectations and their objectives.

Public Safety committee  Absolutely. I'm no expert, but I do know that European countries always have to abide by the free trade agreements signed by the European Union. I think that's easier for countries in Europe, since they're already used to doing business that way. We would need to take a closer look at that aspect in Canada.

Public Safety committee  Yes, I think that one of the advantages of not being a first mover in this space, Canada gets to see what other countries have done, so there are lessons learned. There are best practices that will come from other countries, and we'll be able to examine those and decide whether we want to proceed or not.

Public Safety committee  I won't comment on profit, but on outcomes. What I can say on outcomes is that a government or any set of partners would only want to do this if they thought, as you made mentioned in your first comment, that it was going to improve outcomes. We're trying to solve social and economic challenges and you want to be able to improve things through the application of an innovation.

Public Safety committee  We have to get back to you. All they did was submit a concept to us, but I couldn't tell you what the record of success has been for this organization over time.

Public Safety committee  I don't know how to answer that. I've not seen that raised as a concern. I also think that you don't have to just raise money locally. This is a global market. That's why the UK, when it had the G-8 presidency, set up an international task force to look at this. For some of their projects In the UK, they have money from outside the country as well funding them.

Public Safety committee  That's definitely been a concern that has been raised in the UK. The need to set up the appropriate design and selection process is key. The rigour that you have to bring to the design is paramount to addressing some of the equity questions that you raised. So different approaches, like random control trials, other social science techniques, can be used to avoid this problem of “creaming” and other things.

Public Safety committee  They're not private projects, because these are partnerships, right? So the government is still there.

Public Safety committee  But they could be from the charitable sector, correct? The service providers are from the charitable sector. That's the case in most countries. That sector is already receiving grants and contributions from governments and providing services. That hasn't changed; they're still there on the front lines.

Public Safety committee  There's no set formula. It's a contract. Like every other contract, you would have to negotiate it.

Public Safety committee  We're not the only people who have innovations. I think in this model the assumption is that other people have innovations too. What if you partnered with them to work through those innovations together and think about how you could implement them in different contexts and different communities?

Public Safety committee  Thanks for that, All these projects mentioned here are concepts. This was a call for ideas from Canadians, as I said, to test their knowledge of and level of interest. It was, in a sense, a kind of market study, if you will. Trying to understand whether Canadians would be interested in partnering to do social finance-type projects.

Public Safety committee  It could be in operation, but we haven't funded this particular project. It was submitted to us as an idea.