Human Resources committee  The projects are extremely varied. They can range from a cooperative brewery to a town convenience store. In the region you come from, Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean, there is Groupe Coderr, for example, which does waste management. It is a social enterprise. There are such enterprises

Human Resources committee  That sort of investor does exist. People may absolutely want a return on their investment, and at the same time, they may be willing to get a lower return, but not always, if something serves a social purpose they believe in. That capital exists and it is possible to find it. The

Human Resources committee  One barrier is the lack of knowledge. Moreover, large foundations have to invest their money. In order to make donations, they have to invest somewhere. They need a return and certain guarantees. It is sometimes hard to connect the investor with the project. There may be other b

Human Resources committee  I don't know the figures for Canada. Perhaps Mr. LePage has them. In Quebec, we often talk about 8% of GDP, but of course that includes the giants. Mouvement Desjardins and La Coop fédérée, for example, are very large businesses that skew the data. Statistics of this sort are a

Human Resources committee  Yes, that would be possible. Organizations like the one we have in Quebec, the Réseau d'investissement social du Québec, could be created. There could be others. Seed capital is very high-risk. Obviously, there is always some loss and, in the long term, the fund ends up decapita

Human Resources committee  As I was saying earlier, it is true that in many cases, small- and medium-sized enterprises face similar challenges to those of social enterprises, which, for the most part are small enterprises. That is something that could be put in the rules you set. We could provide officials

Human Resources committee  Obviously, investing in social enterprises is not the same as investing in regular private enterprises. We have been investing in this type of enterprise for more than 15 years. We have even developed a guide specifically for analyzing social economy projects. This guide is base

Human Resources committee  Integrating social clauses in requests for proposals or opening research and development programs, for example, which are currently often done through tax credits and are not open to not-for-profit enterprises. These are two ways, if you will, to support this sector.

Human Resources committee  Our loss ratio is very, very low. In fact, it is lower than similar venture capital investments for private enterprises. We are quite confident and pleased so far. We saw this in the case of other Quebec investment portfolios, a Government of Quebec investment company. When we i

Human Resources committee  We have been operating since 1996. Our organization was founded almost 20 years ago.

Human Resources committee  This fund was created in 2007, so it has been only eight years. In other words, we have not started to see a return on the investment yet. It's patient capital. You have to be very patient.

Human Resources committee  We do a follow-up, as any bank does on its loan. We get their statement every year.

Human Resources committee  Yes.

Human Resources committee  Many programs already exist—

Human Resources committee  I really like the example Mr. LePage used, but we could look at in different ways. Other countries, in Europe and the U.S. for example, are increasingly using what are called “social clauses”. This is a contract like the one Mr. LePage was talking about, in other words, providin