Finance committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to be able to comment in person today. My name is Katherine van Kooy and I'm the president and CEO of the Calgary Chamber of Voluntary Organizations. Our 440 members reflect the diversity of this sector in terms of

Finance committee  There are a number of situations in.... I'm going to draw a blank on this. I'm sorry, perhaps I could provide that response to you in writing following this.

Finance committee  I'd certainly be happy to do that. If there's a possibility of following up with you, I will provide that in writing.

Finance committee  A number of things have been looked at. One of the issues experienced by many organizations in need of debt financing is that the commercial banking system is not necessarily attracted to supporting those kinds of organizations. There have been efforts in Canada to try to establ

Finance committee  Work was done a number of years ago—the voluntary sector initiative under the former government. That initiative led to quite a number of substantial gains. Some of the things I mentioned in terms of the data collection are outcomes as a result of the work that was done during th

Finance committee  No, it's not that the charities need to have a consistent strategy. We're encouraging the federal government to take a broader strategic approach to how it deals with charities and not-for-profit organizations across the country. There are initiatives such as the tax relief that

Finance committee  A lot of work in the health area is delivered in communities. Services to immigrants are largely delivered through not-for-profit organizations. One of the things we're finding in Alberta is the growing awareness of the human resource challenge and, as Mr. Alvarez mentioned, the

Finance committee  It has been helpful, but the impact of that is quite varied. I think the primary beneficiaries of that kind of change are very large organizations: universities; hospitals; foundations, potentially; and large organizations. There are certainly many organizations that have benefit

Finance committee  That's one of the reasons we're recommending that what would be really useful is to take a more comprehensive approach to looking at what the government can do in terms of supporting the sector, not necessarily directly through financial injections, but through the various mechan

Finance committee  Thank you. I'd like to thank the chair and the committee for this opportunity to provide input regarding the government's budget priorities. My name is Katherine van Kooy. I'm the president and CEO of the Calgary Chamber of Voluntary Organizations, otherwise known as the CCVO.