Thanks, Mike.
I'd like to bring in two illustrations that highlight recommendations that we submitted for your consideration.
The first is Abbey Gardens, the social enterprise based in Haliburton, Ontario, that started in 2007. Its focus is around sustainable food production, training and education for the community and the region.
One of the challenges they face is that they have a hybrid business model that balances economic development and competitiveness with a social mandate. As such, they find themselves—much like many other social enterprises across the country—challenged by the current suite of small and medium enterprise business support programs that are offered by the federal government that may not recognize hybrid business models or may have challenges around the mandate to access that funding.
Abbey Gardens in Haliburton has been able to work with the community futures program as well as the eastern Ontario development program, but there still exist challenges for these hybrid organizations to access government funds to help them increase their competitiveness and serve their communities.
The second one I'd like to bring your attention to is the BC Rural Centre, a member of CCEDNet.
The BC Rural Centre has existed since the dissolution of the rural secretariat at the federal level to bring stakeholders together in British Columbia that are interested in rural and northern communities. These stakeholders are a community of practice that come together to share knowledge around how social innovation and social finance can be implemented in rural and northern contexts, which is fundamentally different from our urban contexts. These communities of practice bring together community members, stakeholders and indigenous leaders who are often in communities that have great distances between them. This is an incredibly important role that the federal government can take as part of supporting the social innovation and social finance strategy.
These two illustrations really highlight the need for investment in modernization of some of the small and medium business enterprise support programs offered by the federal government, and the need for supporting communities of practice and these knowledge networks to really support our rural and northern communities, and our urban communities as well.