Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I welcome you and the rest of your group to St. John's. We appreciate the opportunity to present to you.
Let me just say that I represent the Community Services Council Newfoundland and Labrador, which is a non-profit, charity-registered social planning research organization. A lot of our activities are involved with national organizations as well, so a lot of my comments relate not only to my experience here but to my experiences with the non-profit, voluntary, community-based sector across the country.
The main point I really want to make is to lay the context for the importance of the non-profit, community-based sector in our country, particularly as it relates to the terms of reference that you have before you, in terms of citizens' quality of life and prosperity.
A recent study across Canada indicated that 91% of Atlantic Canadians view voluntary organizations as the key determinant and the most important element in quality of life in this country. That figure is almost similar to the way Canadians feel across the country, yet in Canada we have no overriding strategy for working with the non-profit, voluntary, community-based sector. There are many relationships between individual departments and individual organizations, but in essence we don't have a broad view of how we should work with the sector as a whole.
In Newfoundland, for example, we have 2,200 registered organizations, all of which are working at a local community-based level to provide support to Canadians. In many instances, they're also providing support to economic development, whether it's through community economic development or by providing Canadians with the skills that they need to be able to participate more fully in our economy. In fact, we know that 62% of organizations in Canada work at a local level, yet the federal government plays an extremely important role in its relationship in supporting those organizations. In other words, it's not just a federal or municipal responsibility.
The other thing we know is that the voluntary, non-profit, community-based sector, whatever you call it, is different from the private sector and the public sector. We all operate with volunteers. Volunteers govern our policies and make our organizations function.
I believe we have to find new ways of working with this sector in Canada, and I think any new government obviously wants to find its own approach to working with the non-profit sector. We know that organizations are under huge stress to recruit qualified board members, qualified volunteers, qualified staff, so I want to make a particular recommendation here today. It has to do with how the federal government and the sector could work more effectively through technology.
At the moment, there is no technology platform within the federal government for relating to the non-profit sector. In fact, there is no vision within the federal government for how technology can be used with the non-profit sector. We may have a strategy for government services online, but it's silent when it comes to how we relate to this huge non-profit sector, which is in fact the locus of over 10% of employment in this country.
So in my remaining minute or two, I would like to suggest that we look seriously at how the federal government and the non-profit sector can provide support to these hugely important organizations in much the same way as we provide support to small and medium-size enterprises. For example, there are sites that provide support to the business sector when it wants to figure out how to do its job. There is no such site in Canada for the non-profit sector. There is, however, an emerging voluntary gateway, and I have circulated information about that particular platform portal, which is just being developed.
The Community Services Council Newfoundland and Labrador is now operating this national portal through a competitive process that we embarked upon with the federal government. The portal has the potential of streamlining relationships with the non-profit sector. I recently presented to the blue ribbon panel on grants and contributions that this would be an extraordinarily good way for you to be able to work more effectively around grants and contributions, which are nothing more than a patchwork at the moment in terms of how we relate to the federal government.
So I recommend that you learn more about lack of platform within the federal government and the use of voluntarygateway.ca to streamline our relationships, thereby building the ability of Canadian citizens and their organizations to serve us all better for our own prosperity.