Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My name is John Hallward, and my day job is president of global innovation for a division of Ipsos.
I want to start with a personal story that kind of summarizes what I'm here for and the other function that I represent.
This started back when I was 21 years old, when my granny sent me some money. The note said “Happy birthday. Here's some money, and it's not for you. Your goal is to pick five charities, give away the money to those five charities, and write a report back to your grandparents.” They did this for all 24 grandchildren. This was their way of training, teaching, and introducing all their grandchildren to the responsibility and the role of giving.
That brings me to today. I learned my lesson well at the age of 21. More recently, I started a foundation and a concept called GIV3, which is the proposal for today. To summarize it best as possible, it's ParticipAction for giving.
You've heard about the tax stretch credits and granting of private equities in real estate. Ours is a different idea; it's a complement. It's a program that would work with those initiatives, but in particular it's to promote and encourage all Canadians to be more philanthropic, to teach them and to start by leadership, etc.
If you take a look at the differences in giving in Canada, we already have differences by provinces, by social demographic classes, and by those who are religious or less religious. We have these differences despite all having the same tax system. Our belief, then, is that it's not just the tax policy that changes or influences what people give.
If you take a look at reasons why we're observing in Canada some declining trends in philanthropy, there are many causes: a little bit of a move away from religiosity, a little bit more movement to the self-centred “me, me, me”, and different values of different generations of Canadians. If you look at all those causes, it begs to consider more than one solution.
As I said, if we all have the same tax system yet certain communities give far more than others, then it can't be just the tax system.
In addition to any other considerations of tax policy changes—and we support all of them because they're all a step in the right direction—we propose the idea of creating a program, an umbrella program, to help promote philanthropy, just as ParticipAction is an umbrella program for the promotion of health and exercise in Canada.
So that's the concept of GIV3. We propose one group, one business unit, one brand, one budget, and one steering committee, like ParticipAction, because it's easier to coordinate partnerships and working with others, whereas having a bunch of different organizations trying to partner together has problems of who owns the intellectual property, different budgets, different mission statements, different boards, etc. Like ParticipAction, it's one working with many to accomplish an umbrella benefit of public health. We want to do the same for philanthropy in Canada.
Our proposal or request is for $5 million a year, with declining amounts over time, to allow us to start, to act as start-up in partnership with the government, to then allow us to move towards and solidify our support from corporations and foundations.
Corporations and foundations are very risk-averse. They want to know that GIV3 is viable, well founded, well funded, and long term. Once they see that, they've been very supportive and encouraging. I mean, a rising tide floats all ships: the more we give, the more all of our communities benefit, the more it allows the government to focus its energy on other things, such as job creation.
We do want to partner with all three sectors, but we need to start. That's why we've come to the government, to help start that ball rolling, asking for $5 million and then to wean down as we go, over time.
We believe the $5 million is a very small investment. We're talking about a $1 billion payoff—if you look at the numbers—if you can get Canadians back to where they were six or seven years ago. We're down $2 billion in private citizens' donations just in the last five or six years. So we're talking about a $2-billion return on a very small amount of money invested.
We like to see GIV3 almost as a conduit of communication, in addition to tax stretch credits and other things. We need to have those mentors, leaders, teachers, etc., like my grandmother was to me. We need to be bringing this out, talking about it in public, reminding Canadians of their responsibilities, and allowing them to immerse themselves in their communities to help.
That's what we're all about. We hope you agree. We hope to have a partnership so that we can work together and start the ball rolling.
Thank you.