Finance committee  I would just say that equity, inclusion, and respect for the environment are areas that charities specialize in and that we have in common with aboriginal people. Many charities are run by aboriginal people, dealing with the problems of aboriginal people. At the national level,

Finance committee  I'd like to make a couple of points in responding. One is on the relationship between charities, non-profits, and growth. Here we have a sector that from 1996 to 2008 grew faster than the Canadian economy. That is the last date for which we have numbers, which comes back to anoth

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would also like to thank the members of the committee for inviting Imagine Canada to testify today on behalf of the charitable and non-profit sector. In its invitation, the committee was careful to stress the importance of an equitable, inclusive and s

Human Resources committee  It certainly is not a global answer. I don't think you could say “we'll not rely on government and we'll rely on social financing”; that is just unrealistic.

Human Resources committee  That's a very good question. In terms of social impact bonds, most of what you see are relatively small demonstration projects. They are sponsored by government, and government has guaranteed rates of return to the private investors. For the one I'm familiar with, on Rikers I

Human Resources committee  We'd be glad to have both, actually. I think the motivation for the stretch is twofold. First of all, as I indicated at the beginning, charities need more money. But we're also concerned about enticing new donors to enter into the charitable marketplace, if you want to use thos

Human Resources committee  Right, and and it gets non-donors to donate for the first time and to get a better rate.

Human Resources committee  I come back to my main point, that charities and non-profits are a really important component of the economy. I'd like to see the government treat charities and non-profits more as small businesses and be eligible for the small business financing program and the Business Developm

Human Resources committee  Thank you. There are about 85,000 charities in Canada and about 85,000 non-profits, so taking out charities from the larger picture reduces the numbers by around a half. The hospitals, universities, and so on continue to grow more quickly than the economy, and I think the point

Human Resources committee  I think the other presenters have said it all: capacity, awareness, and, I would add, the constraints that are implicit in the Income Tax Act that constrain what charities are able to do with their earned income activities.

Human Resources committee  I feel a little bit hampered in giving an answer to that without much specific knowledge, but the ones I'm aware of, which are basically demonstration projects on social finance, are things like the Peterborough experiment with respect to recidivism, the Rikers Island experiment

Human Resources committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to start with some comments on the scope of the charitable sector in general. Charities and non-profits are an important and expanding economic sector in Canada. Data collected by Imagine Canada and by the Johns Hopkins University Cent