Okay.
I'm going to begin with what we consider to be some very good examples and stories of effective poverty reduction through the creation of labour market attachment for marginalized community members and persons with disabilities.
SAP, formerly BusinessObjects, is a very large international software company with 2,000 employees in their Vancouver office. As a software developer, they have no entry-level jobs; however, historically they have annually purchased more than $200,000 in catering from Potluck Catering in the downtown east side. Some 50% of Potluck's staff come from that community, the poorest postal code in Canada, and are considered hard-to-employ persons.
In rural British Columbia, the publisher of the Trail Daily Times daily newspaper contracts with The Right Stuff to do their inserts, collating, and preparations for distribution. The Right Stuff employees are all youth at risk. These are the youth who don't fit traditional school systems, nor do they fit the traditional employment training programs.
In Winnipeg, Manitoba, Assiniboine Credit Union has contracted Inner City Renovation for the construction of their last two branches. Inner City Renovation trains and employs inner city residents, primarily aboriginal youth, in the construction trades.
Royal Bank is a regular customer of Eva's Phoenix Print Shop in Toronto, a printer who trains youth coming off the streets in the printing trade.
Renaissance thrift stores in Montreal employ and train hundreds of staff every year. The development of a competent and reliable workforce is at the heart of Renaissance's mission. Their purpose is to help Quebeckers who need employment support or new arrivals integrating into the labour market.
The dollar store in Halifax prepares individuals with mental health issues to enter the labour market.
In northern Ontario in the Prescott-Russell francophone community, Convex operates 11 enterprises whose mission is to generate meaningful jobs through business projects for residents who face employment challenges.
At the 2010 Olympics, the bouquet you will see presented to each medal winner will be produced by Just Beginnings, a flower shop and training centre primarily for women who are re-entering the labour market after incarceration or addiction recovery.
All of these suppliers, the employers who focus on providing attachment to the labour force for targeted groups, are social enterprises. They are businesses operated by a non-profit organization for the dual purpose of generating income through the sales of products or services and achieving a social value. In these cases, they're providing employment to persons on the brink of, or suffering from, the pains of poverty. Social enterprises blend business and social outcomes.
A recent survey of 50 social enterprises in British Columbia showed that they had 860 employees, of whom 660 were from identified groups in need. These businesses offer services including landscaping, printing, sewing, light manufacturing, packaging, recycling, janitorial service, couriers, catering, retail, and on.
We believe social enterprise is a valuable tool for some non-profits, providing them the means to address market problems like labour market attachment for targeted marginalized community members. Social enterprise is also a means for the non-profit sector to further their mission and to generate income. As described above, social enterprises are in the marketplace and create employment opportunities based on sales and business. Their customers are private sector businesses, government, and other non-profits. The more successful they are as businesses, the more employees they create.
We want to emphasize to this committee that there is now a rapidly growing need to provide a supportive environment for the demand side, the businesses, that is the social enterprises, that specifically target creating employment opportunities for marginalized community members. In other countries, especially the U.K., Europe, and Australia, there are integrated public policies for the support of social enterprise.
We recommend that the committee include in its poverty reduction policy the role of social enterprise in a supportive framework that includes a government procurement policy that targets purchasing from social enterprises, as was recently adopted by the Province of Ontario. This can contain a policy that increases unbundling of large contracts and social value weighting in the request for proposals, not dissimilar to what the SME sector has raised as a critical policy need.
Second, create access to an expansion of programs that will enhance the business skills of the non-profit sector. Third, provide access to a range of appropriate capital, such as tax credits and patient capital pools. Fourth, support the research that will generate a greater understanding of the value of social enterprise in the reduction of poverty and in the building of healthy communities.
Especially for the marginalized and persons with disabilities, attachment to the labour market is critical to poverty reduction and poverty elimination. We believe social enterprise is an innovative and effective tool that will contribute to that challenge of reducing poverty in Canada. It should definitely be included in the policy framework that this committee moves forward to Parliament for implementation.
Thank you.