Thank you so much for the opportunity to address the committee. I'm particularly grateful for you giving me the opportunity to speak from Toronto.
My name is Allyson Hewitt and I work at a program called SIG at MaRS. MaRS is an innovation centre in downtown Toronto, and SIG is a national collaborative designed to create a culture of continuous social innovation.
One area of focus for our work, both at MaRS and at SIG, is trying to determine how best to finance social purpose work in our country through the creation of a centre for impact investing. This came out of the work of the Canadian Task Force on Social Finance.
The Canadian Task Force on Social Finance issued its seven recommendations for mobilizing private capital for public good in December of 2010 and a progress report in December 2011. The task force consisted of business and philanthropic leaders, including the Right Honourable Paul Martin, Stanley Hartt, Sam Duboc, and Tim Brodhead, and was chaired by MaRS CEO Ilse Treumicht. Of the seven recommendations from the task force, three may be particularly relevant for our discussion today.
One focuses on mobilizing capital through the creation of impact investing funds. The second concerns modernizing legal and regulatory frameworks, particularly concerned with CRA and removing the restrictions against social enterprise, looking instead at a destinations test. The next one is about enabling private investments via tax incentives, and we're hoping to see the establishment of a multisectoral working group to examine specific proposals.
At SIG we recognize that grants and contributions, along with fundraising, are essential elements of a healthy society. We encourage the committee in its efforts to make that process less burdensome for all involved. We also contend that the extent of the problems of the 21st century require us to think about additional ways to leverage financing to support social purpose work and to tackle these complex challenges.
Many not-for-profit organizations and charities are now run by social entrepreneurs who are seeking new ways of creating social value beyond the traditional fundraised dollars in, social services out. They are joined by their colleagues around the world and the enabling systems that have been created.
In Australia, the Senate recently encouraged the government to incent investments in non-profits through tax measures. In the U.K., they have built on their leadership in this area by establishing Big Society Capital, a £600 million fund from unclaimed bank assets, and have mobilized additional government support. Many provinces, from British Columbia to Nova Scotia, are exploring new ways to enable and support social enterprises through enabling legislation.
Again, we applaud the work of the committee in seeking to modernize charitable giving, and we also encourage you to consider looking at other jurisdictions, both inside and outside of Canada, to mobilize more private capital for public good, and ideally to find a made-in-Canada solution to finance the efforts of Canadians seeking to create and enhance social impact.
Thank you.