Finance Committee on May 25th, 2021

[Liban Abokor]

Thank you for that question.

I'll answer it in two ways.

We absolutely believe there should be an equity benchmark within the philanthropic sector when it comes to grants making.

I mentioned earlier that there is about $7 billion a year in grants making throughout foundations, corporate and community and private foundations within this country. If we applied the 3.5%, which is the Black Canadian population to date, that would account for about $250 million a year in spending. I think that gives you a bit of perspective around what $100 million for supporting Black communities actually means, as well as the disbursement quota that I mentioned earlier with the $200 million philanthropic endowment.

I say that to say that we certainly could use a greater level of investment. For supporting Black communities, that $100 million, as you know, is for one year. What happens moving forward? There's a longitudinal investment that we need to make so that we can really start moving the needle on these disparities that I mentioned earlier, whether it's housing, food insecurity and so much more.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

What I am asking is this. There is the philanthropic endowment fund, which has the $200 million, but when we're providing funding through to the community foundations, should we be saying that 3.5% of your funding needs to go to...and actually putting that across the board? It may be that in some communities it's 10% and in other ones it's 2%, but across the board, that needs to.... I just find that if that isn't there, it's too easy not to fund it.

I'm just wondering about your thoughts on that.

[Liban Abokor]

Thank you. I'm sorry I wasn't clear.

I was agreeing with you that there should be an equity benchmark. I don't know that it should be 3.5%. I think, to your point, we need to benchmark it to the actual inequity, so as you mentioned, maybe it's 10% in some regions and maybe it's 20% in others.

One of the things is that there is a lack of data to really pinpoint where different communities are along the scale, and that's what makes it hard for folks to wrap their heads around what the benchmark should be. I absolutely agree with you that if we're giving dollars to any community—for instance, the $400 million that's going to go to stabilize the social service sector, which is something that Imagine Canada and Community Foundations are part of—there should be an equity benchmark not only for Black communities but also for indigenous, for women and so forth.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Also, on the capacity-building piece, you'll never get to the equity benchmark if the organizations don't have the capacity to apply. I often hear, “We didn't get enough applications.” Then I talk to organizations, and they say, “Have you looked at the application form? We're trying to do good work in the community. We don't have the time or the knowledge to be able to fill that out.”

Thank you for that.

I have about 45 seconds left, so just quickly, for Startup Canada, I know the women entrepreneurship strategy has been very successful in my riding. How important is it within that type of funding for start-ups is it to have, just as I was talking about, these equity benchmarks for women-led businesses, Black-led businesses and indigenous-led businesses?

[Natasha Hope Morano]

Absolutely, it is incredibly important, and we need to see that long term. That's the big piece.

Similarly with the procurement diversification, I'm really happy to see that there is additional support for under-represented groups. As we're going to look to our great rebuild, we look to the role that entrepreneurs play in creating and stimulating a very sound, strong Canadian economy. We need to be as inclusive as possible and make sure that all voices, all entrepreneur voices, are included in the high-level policies that are going to be implemented.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I have just a quick supplementary question for Ms. Morano before we close.

It was interesting wording, I thought. You used the words “pain points” many times. What do you mean by that? Is it lack of investment? Is it regulation? Is it labour and skills training? What do you mean by that?

[Natasha Hope Morano]

Thank you so very much, Chair.

It's absolutely everything. Particularly with reference to my speech, I'm talking mainly about the early-stage ideation start-up phase for entrepreneurs, in which they don't even know what an accelerator is or an incubator is. They don't know where to go for support. They don't know what's available to them.

Of the respondents to our most recent census, 56% are asking for better advisory and mentorship support and to have a mechanism in place whereby all of the information that's out there can be consolidated so it's super-easy and super-accessible. It's an efficient way to get funding that's available through both private and public sectors into the hands of the entrepreneurs who so desperately need it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Related to Pam's question on applications, what do you make of federal government applications? I know that it takes volunteers pretty nearly 20 hours to fill them out because they are so complicated, when a two-page application would do.

What are your thoughts on that?

[Natasha Hope Morano]

That's a great question, Mr. Chair, and thank you so very much. I'll answer the question in two pieces.

If entrepreneurs even know that there are government grants to be tapped into, that's the the first part. There's the access question. They don't know that there are mechanisms in place for additional support, and then it's navigating the myriad of different government programs.

I had a conversation most recently with Minister Murray's office. Filling out an application form is not a simple process. As we look to better support entrepreneurs, it's really about simplifying everything, and where Startup Canada could play a really important role is in creating the tools, resources and framework so that entrepreneurs know what specific resources are available for them, depending on where they are in their entrepreneurship journey.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

With that, on behalf of the committee I want to thank all the witnesses who appeared today. This is our final hearing on Bill C-30 before we turn to clause-by-clause. We've heard from a lot of witnesses, a lot of diverse witnesses, every day. Thank you for taking the time, some of you on very short notice, to appear, put together your presentations and answer our questions.

With that, the meeting is adjourned. All the best.