Yes, we're actually doing a project with the rural secretariat, presenting on social enterprise to local public servants and non-profits.
Thank you very much for the honour to present today to you. As you know, I represent Canadian Community Economic Development Network, CCEDNet, which is a national membership organization of over 650 members representing 3,000 networked organizations across the country. CCEDNet works with these organizations in order to strengthen Canadian communities using community economic development principles, an integrated model joining social and economic results.
When we view the economy as a whole, we look at it as having three sectors. One sector is the public sector, which is government-owned and government-operated businesses and systems. The other is the private sector, which is the entrepreneurs in the private sector, the corporations, and the partnerships. The third is the social economy, which is the assets and the enterprises used to generate both social and economic benefits. The engines of the social economy are the credit unions, the cooperatives, and the social enterprises.
The part I would like to focus on for the next couple of minutes to demonstrate its effectiveness in strengthening communities is social enterprise. When we talk about a social enterprise, we're talking about a non-profit organization that owns and operates a business for the dual purposes of not only generating income but also achieving a social and/or environmental purpose.
In the tradition return-on-investment model, there has been a separation between the non-profit sector, which has looked for a social return on investment, versus the private sector, which has looked strictly at a financial return on investment. A social enterprise looks for a blended return on investment; both the social and the financial returns are considered basic objectives.
There are three basic purposes for social enterprises. One is to enhance the financial sustainability of non-profits. A very good example of that is Atira Property Management in Vancouver. It is a for-profit commercial property management entity that's owned by a non-profit. The profits from that corporation go back to the non-profit to provide housing for women in need.
There is creation of employment, an example being Potluck Catering in the downtown eastside, which employs 30 individuals through their non-profit to their social enterprise, 15 of those individuals coming off welfare or out of homelessness situations.
The third purpose is to promote the mission of the non-profit, an example being Eco-Lumber Co-op in B.C.
It is not just in British Columbia. We can look at the employment in Red Deer, Alberta, for persons with disabilities in the bottle depots, or in Lake Lenore, where the grocery store and the greenhouse actually saved that small 300-person community from losing its grocery store. In the inner city of Winnipeg, Inner City Renovation employs aboriginals to work on the actual physical rehabilitation of the neighbourhood.
We believe there are four points within the potential role of government to support social enterprise and the social economy, the first being the creation of an enabling environment with a supportive regulatory and policy environment for the social economy, including the charitable rules and regulations that support social economy activity.
The second is enterprise development support, which is support along an entire enterprise development path to support the enterprise search, the transition, and the beginning of social enterprises. That includes supporting learning and networking among the participants.
We believe another key support for the social economy is an examination and adjustment of procurement policies in the federal government, so that procurement policies support a blended return on investment and support contracting policies and procedures that will break down contracts to allow smaller social-enterprise and social-economy businesses, along with SMEs, to have access to federal procurement.
The fourth is access to capital. This includes both patient capital and investment credits for the private sector investors interested in partnering with the social economy.
We believe that strengthening Canadian communities is a partnership of government, the private sector, and the social economy, and the stronger we make that social economy, the stronger we'll make Canadian communities.
Thank you.