Finance Committee on May 28th, 2026

[Kevin Muir]

The good news is that the programs that are in place are really working. They're working well. We're talking about making some improvements to the program in three ways.

One is more funding, because the need exceeds what we're able to deliver on. By programs, I'm talking about two programs. There's the Canada summer jobs and the.... I'm sorry, I've lost my notes now. I'll come back to that in just a second. The two programs are working well. We need more funding.

Second, we need to be committed for a longer period. These programs often have an 18-month to two-year turnaround time. Just when we get a program running, we find that we're into a renegotiation. We have to tell our staff, and they don't know how long they're going to be able to stay on before the new contract is in place. Therefore, we're talking about extending it to five years, so that we can really start to make an impact. We really see that being a win-win. It would be a win on our end, but it would also be less administratively burdensome for the government.

Third would be making the budgets more flexible. Right now, budgets can sometimes be inflexible. We'll run out of the capacity to spend money in one area, and we're not able to move it to another area without going through a burdensome process.

The two programs are the youth employment and skills strategy program and the Canada summer jobs program. They're working well. We're talking about making some improvements to them.

[Éric Lefebvre, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

We're talking about bureaucracy. Almost everyone has mentioned it. You just gave an example yourself.

In terms of programs, would we gain in efficiency if we increased the number of years? I'm thinking here of your employees who have to work each time to renew these programs.

Would there be a significant impact within your organization if programs were offered over a longer period, for example on a three- or five-year basis, as you're suggesting?

[Kevin Muir]

We really would see efficiencies on our end, and we would hope that there would seem to be efficiencies on the government's end as well. If we had a five-year program, we could ask, “What is the impact we're trying to make? Let's hire our staff. Let's get the program set up.” Sometimes we have to lease space. We need that longer timeline to be able to make the impact that we want to make.

The good news is that the programs are working. We're just talking about making some improvements to them.

[Éric Lefebvre, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Hallward, you talked about a purchasing co-operative.

Could co-operatives be established within your organizations themselves to achieve greater efficiency in purchasing?

[John Hallward]

In theory, yes. In practice, it's not happening. Collaboration is a very difficult thing, as you can appreciate, with each organization having its own independent board and purpose for existing.

There are little pockets of co-operation. There is an insurance company providing small charity insurance policies. The precedents are there, but we need co-operation at scale, and scaling it takes resources. That's what this fund could invest in, for example, without coming to the Treasury Board and asking for money.

[Éric Lefebvre, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Do you think we could create this type of co-operative on a provincial basis, if we could do it on a slightly smaller scale? I think that doing it by province would already be a significant improvement.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Please give a very brief response.

[John Hallward]

Yes. Provinces have responsibility for charities, but a lot of them defer it to the federal government. The—

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Mr. Hallward. I'm sorry; we're going to have to conclude there.

Thank you, Mr. Lefebvre.

We'll now go to Ms. Martin.

[Danielle Martin, Liberal, University—Rosedale, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here today.

I want to begin by particularly thanking the YMCA, which is where I worked after school and on the weekends all through high school and every summer through my high school life. I want to salute the youth employment work of the YMCA. It got me to where I am today.

I'd like to begin by asking Mr. Hallward and Mr. MacDonald together to comment on the ways in which your proposals interact. It seems to me that what I hear you saying is that we need the not-for-profit sector to have the capacity to function as a sector together vis-à-vis government and civil society, whether it's through this fund you're proposing or some other means. You are also asking government to pull together and interact with the sector in ways that make more sense in terms of simplifying reporting, application processes, etc.

I'm wondering whether your organizations are talking to one another and whether you feel that the ensemble of your proposals today would achieve that goal in totality. Of course, nothing in life is perfect.

What is the interaction between your two proposals?

[John Hallward]

I believe we're in violent agreement. We have our different projects. What we're starved of is resources to invest in them, to be frank. In talking with Bruce and others, their agendas are full. They're working on their programs.

Unfortunately, what we lack in Canada is a strategic plan. We do not have a strategic, holistic vision for how the sector should be done, with priorities. The Senate report in 2019 contained 41 recommendations. It's hard to have a priority when you have 41 of them. We need to get coordinated, create a strategic plan and then invest in that plan. That investment takes resources.

[Danielle Martin, Liberal, University—Rosedale, ON]

Yes, please go ahead.

[Bruce MacDonald]

I was just going to maybe pick up on that to say yes, we absolutely have complementary ideas here because, to John's point, we need the capacity to ensure that the sector can be at the tables around innovation, AI and cybersecurity. Without the ability to do that, we're going to get left behind. That's going to be a problem for Canadian communities.

[Danielle Martin, Liberal, University—Rosedale, ON]

It would be interesting in the ongoing work to understand whether these two sets of proposals and these two organizations might be able to jointly make recommendations on that front. I see, as you say, complementarity between them.

I'm moving to the YMCA and YWCA.

Thank you to you both for your excellent proposals.

It seems to me, at least in my community of University—Rosedale but, largely speaking, across the country, that we're moving towards more multi-use community hub types of spaces in which child care, recreation, below-market housing programs, seniors programs and health clinics are co-located in many environments. We can all appreciate the potential benefits of that.

I'm wondering whether either or both of you could comment on whether we have the necessary enabling funding and partnership infrastructure at the federal level to support these kinds of multi-use projects.

[Kevin Muir]

I can start.

We call them centres of community. No two really look exactly the same, and that's really the cool thing about them. We're able to look at what the community needs and what partners are available to come to the table, and then we look at how we can work together to create something that is really going to help the community. We've had a lot of success. We've built a lot of new YMCAs.

As I mentioned in the proposal, we believe that the funding needs to be expanded and made a bit easier at the early stages. With that support, we're able to continue to build these centres and respond to community need.

On the other end, we have a lot of infrastructure across the country where the capital is starting to fall behind, so we'd really love to be able to access some of this funding to support that as well.

[Danielle Martin, Liberal, University—Rosedale, ON]

Ms. Nizigama, please go ahead.

[Aline Nizigama]

I echo what Kevin is saying.

Our secret sauce at the YWCA and across our federation has been to have that co-location model. It's something we want to highlight in all the new projects we have under way. We have 18 projects that we are hoping to build in terms of transitional and affordable housing. Those models will have co-location with child care, employment, counselling for gender-based violence and for youth, and other recreation services. It's been our secret sauce since our inception.

We see the funding sometimes as a challenge, because it comes in fragmented ways, so we do have to do a lot of thinking in making that vision come to life. What we are proposing to this government more and more is to really capitalize on that co-location.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Great. Thank you very much.

We'll conclude this hour with Mr. Garon.

Mr. Garon, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Mr. MacDonald, you state in your brief that there needs to be better communication between the federal government and the charitable sector to avoid unnecessary delays and excessive red tape.

We hear a lot about red tape in the federal government. Can you give us some concrete examples of situations that illustrate this reality?

That would help us better understand what you are going through and better grasp the issue of cumbersome administrative procedures and red tape.

[Bruce MacDonald]

Thank you so much. It's a great question.

As we think about the way the grants and contributions programs work within the government, we see that they create challenges on both the government side and the charity and non-profit side. For example, an organization that may be applying to Heritage, Environment, Health and IRCC is required to fill out almost the same form four times, and civil servants are required to review the same information four times. Having a one-partner, one-profile system whereby the government would be able to tell its entire relationship with an organization, would—

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

I will interrupt you, if I may. At the federal level, we've experienced procurement issues. Four ministers were responsible for this area. It was complex. Businesses had to deal with multiple agencies. Today, the federal government understands that we need a one-stop shop when it comes to procurement.

When you talk about a single partner, a single profile, it's the same kind of philosophy that you're proposing to apply.

Is that correct?

[Bruce MacDonald]

It's the same concept.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

However, this would apply to the charitable sector.

Is that correct?

[Bruce MacDonald]

Yes, it's absolutely the same concept.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Can you give us more details on how the system using a single partner with a single profile would work, from a technical standpoint?