Human Resources Committee on Feb. 26th, 2015

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you very much for that answer.

That brings the first panel to a close.

I want to thank both of you gentlemen for being with us, for taking the time and sharing your expertise.

I know that two things were mentioned by you.

Mr. Vermette, I believe you offered to deliver to this committee a policy manual. I think the members of this committee studying this would like to receive that, if we could. If it's in French, we'll be able to get it translated into English for the English members. We'd appreciate that.

Mr. LePage, I believe you referred to a study that you offered to send to the committee. We'd very much enjoy receiving that as well.

Again, thank you for taking the time.

Committee members, we will break momentarily while we bring in the second panel.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen.

In the second hour we're continuing with our study to explore the potential of social finance in Canada.

Joining us for this hour we have Mr. Brian Emmett, the chief economist for the charitable and nonprofit sector, Imagine Canada.

We also have Mr. Preston Aitken, director of programs at Enactus Canada.

Finally, joining us via video conference from Surrey, British Columbia, and representing the Planned Lifetime Advocacy Network, we have Mr. Al Etmanski, co-founder and founding partner of Social Innovation Generation. Appearing with Mr. Etmanski we also have Ms. Vickie Cammack, the co-founder and founding chief executive officer of Tyze Personal Networks. We thank you for being here with us this afternoon.

Welcome, everyone.

We have up to 10 minutes of presentation time for each of you, so there'll be three presentations. I'm not sure if our witnesses by video conference will be sharing their time, but we'll find out when it's their turn.

Why don't we start with Mr. Emmett?

[Brian Emmett, Chief Economist, Canada's Charitable and Nonprofit Sector, Imagine Canada]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I wanted to start with some comments on the scope of the charitable sector in general. Charities and non-profits are an important and expanding economic sector in Canada. Data collected by Imagine Canada and by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Civil Society Studies in the U.S. show that the charitable and non-profit sector in Canada, and in fact in most developing countries, has been growing somewhat more quickly than the gross domestic product has over the last decade or so. It's important to note, I think, that this rapid growth has been driven by demand and by value and generated by fundamental underlying economic and demographic trends. Basically, that is because as Canada's population ages and as it becomes more diverse, and as our economy becomes richer and more service-oriented, people want more of the things that charities do, such as health care and social services, recreation and culture, poverty alleviation, and the care of the natural environment, among many other high-value activities. We expect that growth to continue.

Today charities and non-profits account for roughly 8% of Canada's approximately $2-trillion economy. This means that they generate roughly $160 billion in income each year and employ over two million people. This makes an impressive contribution to Canada's well-being

Of course, it also means that they need $160 billion to finance their operations and if, as we expect, they continue to grow more quickly than the economy as a whole does to meet that growing need, we will need more resources. For example, if demand grows at 4% a year—a little bit more quickly than forecasts for GDP—charities will need an additional $4.8 billion next year, more than $5 billion the year after, and so on compounding. These are big numbers and it's a daunting challenge. The question is, of course, where will the money come from?

Imagine Canada's research shows that today roughly 50% of the revenue of charities—that's broadly defined charities and non-profits including hospitals and universities—comes from grants and payments from government, mainly provincial governments. Thirty-five per cent or so comes from earned income activities of charities, the sale of goods and services, memberships, newsletters, and so on. Another 10% comes from donations from individual taxpayers as claimed on their tax returns. A relatively quite small amount, less than one-half of 1%, comes from donations from the business community.

Looking forward, we can see a little bit of difficulty in many of these streams. Government, our main source of revenue, will be under pressure due to the common economic and demographic challenges we all face. Governments will likely struggle with fiscal pressures for the foreseeable future. Under these conditions, it's importance to stress the necessity of at least maintaining existing levels of financing for charities from government if Canada is to remain an economically successful and socially just country.

Second, charities will look to get more from donors and we will need to expand the population of donors, but donations from individuals are under some pressure. Donations as a percent of GNP have declined slightly but worryingly. Charities are also concerned that new younger donors are not replacing older donors as quickly as they might. This explains why charities have been focused on changes in tax incentives such as the stretch tax credit for charitable giving and why they vigorously continue to support it for the next budget.

Third, constraints on government spending and donations naturally turn charities' attention to the expansion of earned income activities and the exploration by charities and non-profits of what the committee is in fact looking at—new ways to finance their operations—and it assumes a growing importance over time. Growing these financial resources is going to be necessary to meet demand, even if donations and government support remain at existing levels. It's important from our point of view to note that social enterprise and social impact investment are distinct but related concepts.

Social enterprises are organizations or businesses within organizations that sell goods and services as a way of achieving a social good. Many charities and non-profits have been involved in social enterprise for decades and they may or may not take advantage of social financing tools. Social financing encompasses a wide range of instruments. We have a “social good” sector and social impact bonds, demonstration funds that some of the provinces have created, crowd funding and, in particular, debt crowd funding, impact investing, and tax incentives for below market return investments.

You'll note that social impact bonds—while very top of mind, a very topical topic—are only one piece of a larger puzzle. Imagine Canada has identified four things that we need to be in place for charities and non-profits to engage in these new forms of finance. One obviously is access to capital. The second is the human capital and skills to make good use of them. Third is market demand, and fourth is an enabling regulatory environment.

New investment tools may help to address capital needs, but this will only be true if the regulatory environment allows charities and non-profits to take advantage of them and to operate a broader range of revenue-generating activities. It will also be the case only if organizations have access to people with skills and ability and the capacity to navigate new financial instruments, understand their potential, and interact in new ways with governments and investors.

Getting all these fundamentals right will require investment and capacity building at a time when organizations are under severe pressure to reduce overheads to unrealistic levels.

The sheer size and scope of the financial challenges we all face means there will be no one solution, no magic bullet, to ensure financial sustainability of a large and growing and vital sector. Rather we'll all have to work hard to maintain existing levels of government support, maintain donations from individuals, develop partnerships with business, as well as explore and develop new tools such as social impact investment.

Our goal in considering social finance initiatives should be increasing the total resources available to charities and non-profits, not finding ways to move them around, say downloading from government to other sectors. In this picture government remains vital. It's the largest source of finance for charities, and maintaining its commitment to the charitable and non-profit sector is vital. It's also vital in assisting with capacity development and providing an enabling regulatory environment.

The issue goes well beyond the remit of one standing committee or one government department. Given the broad range of regulatory and possible legislative issues that need to be considered to ensure that social finance meets the needs and goals of government, the private sector, charities and non-profits, one could foresee that your colleagues in the finance and industry committees will take note of your work and consider how they can build upon it.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you, Mr. Emmett.

Now we move on to Mr. Aitken, for 10 minutes.

[Preston Aitken, Director, Programs, Enactus Canada]

Thank you for having me here today.

My name is Preston Aitken and I'm the national program director for Enactus Canada.

Today, I'd like to provide a brief overview of Enactus and how we're involved in social finance and social entrepreneurship. From there I'd like to offer a few ideas that we have to support the growth of social finance in Canada.

For those of you who don't know, Enactus Canada is a national charity and Canada's largest leadership and entrepreneurship program in the post-secondary space, with almost 3,000 students involved on 66 university and college campuses coast to coast. Our mission is to shape generations of entrepreneurial leaders who are passionate about advancing the economic, social, and environmental health of Canada.

We're also proud to note that we're supported by many companies here in Canada, including Tim Hortons, Scotiabank, Capital One, and BDC, among others.

We are also part of a global network with Enactus operating in 36 different countries with over 70,000 students enrolled.

We establish an Enactus team on every university and college campus we operate on. It is run by students and guided by academic and business advisers. These teams are challenged to identify social and environmental needs in their communities and to create a business-based solution that empowers their target audience. After running its project, the team is tasked with measuring and reporting on the impact that each project has made on the lives of their project beneficiaries.

Last year in Canada alone our Enactus teams ran 259 projects that directly and indirectly impacted over 640,000 people. These projects saw students contribute over 225,000 volunteer hours to make these initiatives happen.

Here are some sample measurements from last year's initiatives. They employed more than 1,600 people through skill development and business creation, reduced over 600,000 kilograms of waste, provided almost 10,000 people with financial education training, assisted 99 individuals to earn an income above the low-income cut-off, and increased the wealth of participants by more than $1.6 million.

To give you some context for what these numbers mean, let me give you a few project examples. Our University of Windsor team created their own impact investment fund for youth-based social ventures in their community. This past year they loaned $10,000 in micro loans of $200 for youth who were starting their own business that had a social impact. The team required a financial return of 15% or a repayment of $230. The team established the fund through a partnership with a local credit union. The businesses started included an environmentally friendly air freshener business, a company that produces furniture out of recycled wood, among others. These businesses generated $60,000 in combined revenue and the Enactus Windsor team reported they earned a 100% repayment rate on the loans. This has allowed the team to reinvest those funds to grow the program and allow more youth to participate and learn about social entrepreneurship and social finance.

Another example is our local team here at the University of Ottawa. The team realized a tremendous need when they noticed that 37% of the world's visible waste is cigarette butts. They decided to launch a social enterprise that collects cigarette butts and turns them into plastics to be resold into the raw materials market. In addition, it also provides employment to individuals with mental illness. In its first year, they've already hired three individuals and are on track to earn $50,000 in revenue by May. They were able to finance the start-up costs through various business planning competitions and grants.

These are just two of the 259 projects that were run last year, and they provide a small snapshot of how our Enactus teams are using social entrepreneurship to improve the lives of people in need here in Canada. The ability to access social finance plays a key role in the success of these initiatives and their ability to scale.

To get a better understanding of what our teams achieve, we invite you to attend one of our regional or national competitions. These events feel like the Olympics of business; teams come together and showcase the impact of their results. Every year we send the best team from Canada to represent Canada at an Enactus World Cup and that moves around year after year. Last year it was in Beijing, this year it will be in Johannesburg, South Africa, and I'm pleased to announce that we just heard that we have secured the Enactus World Cup. In 2016, it will be coming to Toronto.

In essence, Enactus Canada serves as an experiential learning platform for students to realize their potential. We run with an organizational staff of only 10 and work to build a community of experts and mentors around the students so they can be successful in improving the economic, social, and environmental health of Canada through their community outreach projects.

This framework not only allows for incredible community impact; more importantly, it enables the youth in our program to become the responsible business and community leaders of tomorrow by building the skills, talent, perspective, and knowledge they need to tackle the economic, social, and environmental challenges of the future.

I'll now move on to some thoughts on social finance here in Canada from our Enactus perspective. As we are mainly a capacity-building organization, these two recommendations we're offering relate to government building capacity.

The first issue I'd like to talk about is measurement. A significant challenge in getting private capital into the social sector is a lack of common language in measuring social and environmental outcomes here in Canada. As an organization, we have implemented our own standardized metrics using research on such existing frameworks as IRIS and the sustainable livelihoods model. That has been invaluable, as we now have a common framework and language for our Enactus teams to show our impact. We can aggregate and better understand our data nationally. However, these standards do not necessarily align with other organizations, as there are no common standards. This makes it difficult for funders and organizations looking to support different ventures and charities, as it's harder to compare the impact. Therefore, our recommendation is to help support the use of common standards for measuring and reporting social and environmental impact here in Canada.

Second, the field of social entrepreneurship and social finance is emerging and evolving rapidly. This often means there is little awareness and understanding among mainstream investors and organizations that could benefit from social finance. We notice that many post-secondary institutions are not keeping up with educating and training students in these areas. There are a few new programs, but by far and wide it's not common. As social finance and entrepreneurship continues to grow and become a much more significant avenue for Canada to address social challenges, it is important for tomorrow's leaders to be ready for this new challenge. Therefore, our recommendation is to help support programs and initiatives that educate and train the future generation of leaders on social entrepreneurship and social finance. We believe this will build knowledge and expertise for the sector and help increase the investment pipeline down the road.

I would like to thank the standing committee for the opportunity to speak here today. I hope some of the suggestions were helpful.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you, Mr. Aiken.

Now we move to video conference to hear from Mr. Etmanski and Ms. Cammack.

Please proceed.

[Al Etmanski, Founding Partner of Social Innovation Generation, and Co-Founder, Planned Lifetime Advocacy Network]

Vickie and I have just come back from sharing our work in Europe, particularly in the city of Barcelona, which is quite fascinating. She'll tell you about that in a minute.

We will share the presentation. We are co-founders of the Planned Lifetime Advocacy Network, as well as the other things that were mentioned at the introduction. We're not speaking to you from Surrey. We're actually speaking to you from Vancouver.

I'll very briefly describe PLAN.

PLAN—the Planned Lifetime Advocacy Network—is now over 25 years old. It was set up to answer a question that nobody in history had ever had to answer before: what happens to people with disabilities when their parents die? We started this organization in Vancouver thinking that it would be a small pilot project. It has now spread to over 40 locations around the world. This is the first time in history that people with disabilities are outliving their parents.

PLAN started with a very small grant from the federal government. Once that grant was over, we operated without any government money and have been independent of government financing for over 25 years, so we are a social enterprise.

I'd like to tell you about two particular elements of social financing: one, our work in creating the registered disability savings plan; and two, a social purpose business called “Tyze”, which Vickie started.

Before I do that, I want to share a couple of biases. The first bias is that we are not particularly interested in social finance if it does not get to the roots of our social challenges. We spend an awful lot of money in this country basically remediating poverty, homelessness, and issues facing people with disabilities and the like. If all we're doing is rearranging things and finding other sources of money, we're not particularly interested. We think social finance can be used to actually get to the source, to get to the roots, to go upstream, and to deal with issues of prevention. That's bias number one.

Bias number two is that we are less interested in securing new sources of funding, although that's a worthy effort. We don't think that in the short term there are going to be a lot of additional funds coming from the private sector. We think that will be a much slower process. We are particularly interested in social finance because it gives people an opportunity to leverage the existing resources and to have money coming from different sources working better together.

That brings me to my third point. We think social finance has to be lodged or anchored within the context of what many of us around the world are now calling “social innovation”. Social innovation invites all of us to look differently at our toughest, most stubborn social problems. It invites us to do five things.

One, it invites us to rethink our solutions, to be more open-minded and not simply focus on the way we've always done things. Two, it invites us to work together differently. Three, it invites us to use technology when appropriate but not to become overly fascinated by it. Four, it invites us to use our money wisely, which brings us to social finance, of course. Five, it gives us an opportunity to scale, and another bias Vickie and I have is that already in Canada there are solutions to our toughest social problems: they're just orphans and they're not at scale. Social finance gives us an opportunity to do that.

Let me very briefly talk about the registered disability savings plan. If a family or a person with a disability were to put the equivalent of a Tim Hortons double-double and a doughnut aside every day, in 30 years they would have over $350,000—depending on the interest rates available to them—to spend on what they see as appropriate for their life in the world. The registered disability savings plan is the only one in the world, and it involves leveraging government, foundation, family, and individual contributions to enable the person with the disability to finally have a bank account and to have funds that he or she can control, as opposed to being at the mercy of a service delivery system that's been set up through the non-profit sector.

I won't get into it in a lot of detail, although I'd be happy to answer any questions on it. Today there is over $2 billion in deposits by people with disabilities in RDSP accounts, and they are essentially fomenting a revolution in how we look at supporting people with disabilities. Clawback is being eliminated by most provinces and territories. The ability to earn and accumulate assets is now policy in most provinces and territories in Canada.

Finally, I think it is providing an opportunity for us to rethink how we approach poverty not just for people with disabilities but also for the other tens of thousands of Canadians who are in poverty.

We think this is an example of government, private sector, and the community sector working together to solve a brand new social challenge, which is what happens to people with disabilities when their parents die; and, too, providing some advice and perhaps a model for how we approach some of our other tough social problems.

I'm now going to pass it over to Vickie to tell you about another invention that came out of our work with PLAN.

[Vickie Cammack, Founding Chief Executive Officer of Tyze Personal Networks, and Co-Founder, Planned Lifetime Advocacy Network]

Good afternoon.

One of our two core pillars at PLAN was addressing the financial security of people with disabilities, but the other one was addressing the fundamental issue, which was their isolation. At PLAN we created a very strategic and focused process to develop personal networks. We determined that in order to spread this process to people with disabilities and their families and to many people beyond, we could better distribute our solution in the container of a social mission business, which we call Tyze Personal Networks. We took advantage, really, of a trend around technology, so this is all the social networking technologies that are out there, in creating Tyze. Tyze, if you want to think about it, is like a very personal, private Facebook for people to coordinate care around a person vulnerable to isolation. When we created Tyze, we realized that isolation is a 21st century challenge and that isolation is costly. There are many studies that talk about it as a determinant of health, including that its effects are more detrimental than that of smoking. So Tyze as a solution was created for people with disabilities, people who are aging, people who are experiencing challenging diseases and so on, anybody vulnerable to isolation.

Funding to create the business began within the charity. It came from a number of foundations in the United States and Canada. We created the business plan and the prototype, and then we launched the business as a private business, owned primarily by the charity, but also owned by private angel investors. We were actually able to blend funding to launch this business.

The business model was always designed around making the solution accessible in a way that was inclusive, accessible, and affordable. Our model was to sell Tyze to businesses or non-profits and charities that were serving people vulnerable to isolation. As we began to grow, we began to dance between the two worlds of business and charity, which led us to a few more private investors, but also to a number of foundations and so on that wanted to invest, but couldn't because of the nature of the container, the private business container.

In terms of a business model, again, with this inclusive, accessible, affordable design, we were didn't fit into the traditional business world for mezzanine funding. We weren't looking for a fast exit. We weren't looking to make the traditional rapid economic growth. Our distribution was our biggest motivation. Mezzanine funding, a traditional term in business, was really very limited for a business like ours. We grew to 20 employees. Actually, there was some discussion around some investment by government, but, again, being a business was a problem. Project funding in a charitable container was widely available, but investment into the business was not.

Tyze itself was acquired a year and a half ago by a Canadian charity, Saint Elizabeth Health Care, so in that way it's a very good story, and Saint Elizabeth continues to maintain Tyze. The big learning for us has been that the potential of social finance is so great and the potential for partnership with government for really wide-scale distribution is extraordinary. The challenge becomes in the ways and means of these various containers and structures to be able to work together. How does a social mission business work with government, work with private investors, work with foundations, in order to scale it to its largest extent? This is particularly important when we're talking about something like Tyze, which works upstream to effect cost savings into our systems of care.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you very much. We appreciate your comments.

We're going to move on to our first round of questioning, and we'll begin with Madam Sims.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Thank you very much. It's great to hear all the presentations and I wanted to thank all of you.

I think for those of you from Surrey and speaking from Vancouver, you'll be pleased to know that it's -27^oC or something ridiculous like that here, so you're probably glad that after Barcelona, you're doing it from Vancouver rather than being here.

One of the questions I have is one I've asked before, but I'm going to ask it again. Often when we talk about social financing, we hear about the importance of target population being engaged in the creation, design, implementation, and evaluation of the projects. That seems to be a core part of social finance, social projects. Can you tell me, based on your own experience or international examples available to you, whether target populations are routinely involved in every aspect of the creation of social finance initiatives and whether they are involved all the way through to evaluation?

I'll ask each of you to make a brief comment on that, please.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Maybe we can start with Mr. Emmett.

[Brian Emmett]

I feel a little bit hampered in giving an answer to that without much specific knowledge, but the ones I'm aware of, which are basically demonstration projects on social finance, are things like the Peterborough experiment with respect to recidivism, the Rikers Island experiment again with respect to recidivism, and, I believe, a similar experiment in Boston.

I'm not familiar with any large-scale experiments in Canada. There are demonstration projects, but my impression is that those don't necessarily involve the target population very much. I think they are kind of bureaucratic technocratic exercises in developing a results-based model and bringing investors who think about the world in a businesslike way, a technocratic way, to link investments to specific defined outcomes that are probably technically developed between the charity and the government.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Thank you.

[Preston Aitken]

From our perspective the vast majority of the work we do is definitely working with the target audiences. In fact when we do our training with our students and teach them how to start social enterprises or award the programming, it's part of the requirements in the needs assessment phase of the project that they work with their target audience and they get to understand the needs and challenges as specified by them. We use a process called “design thinking” in showcasing that. All along the way, they are monitored in terms of their involvement in the process, and that's something, as I said, that, from my perspective with the work we do, is definitely a part of that.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Thank you.

Vickie.

[Vickie Cammack]

One of the things about technology is that it absolutely includes the individual, the target population, in every step of the design, and you're constantly iterating and measuring and refining based on that. So it has some of that kind of in-built design thinking, even if it is just for reference.

I would also like to speak to the whole area of how you know whether you're making any difference, how you know whether the work has any value. Certainly a big piece of our work at Tyze was about how we could measure what we were doing in a meaningful way. We use something called a “triple aim approach”. We look at measuring the individual's experience, their outcomes, and the economic efficiency of the application. Those three pieces are really key.

The other piece out there that I think is relevant to your question is what some people call a social return on investment framework. This is a fairly nascent piece of measurement that is being used both in Britain and in some places here in Canada. I think it merits a lot more work, because we have to figure out how to value impact measurement as much as economic return when we're talking about social finance.

[Al Etmanski]

The only thing I would add is that the biggest example of social finance in Canada, and I would contend perhaps in the world, is the registered disability savings plan. You have individual money, family money, government money working together through a distribution system of the financial institutions of Canada, the banks and credit unions and whatever. There is over $2 billion in deposits. Individuals with disabilities are able to spend that money on what they see fit.

Finance Minister Flaherty essentially said he'd trust people with disabilities and their families to know what's best for them. So it's their decision, their bank account; they're dreaming of the future for the first time in their lives. They're thinking about owning their own homes, about putting a little money aside for retirement, of doing things way beyond what they're able to do under the traditional welfare formula in Canada. It's a brilliant example, and that's the boldness we think social finance offers as opposed to tinkering around the system. It's an opportunity to be as bold as possible and to get the money directly where it belongs, to the individuals who need it.

I think about 80,000 people with disabilities in this country, or about 15%, now see their future differently than they ever did before.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Butt, you have five minutes.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to everyone for being here.

I think we're going to have to get a tape of that. I think that's a pretty good commercial for the next election campaign for the Conservative Party; and God rest Jim Flaherty's soul, he contributed a lot. People with disabilities was a major area he spent a lot of time working on as Minister of Finance and as an MP and an MPP prior to that. What a legacy he's left for this country.

What is the biggest challenge in establishing a social enterprise? Is it financial? Is it operational? Is it getting the right community partners to come together? Is it administrative? Is it too much or too little government?

Mr. Aitken, you gave an excellent example of some of the projects you're doing, and maybe we'll start with you. What did you folks find as the major stumbling block or challenge in being able to get these kinds of things up and running?

[Preston Aitken]

With some of the projects in social enterprises that our students have done, I think the number one challenge, just because of the audience we work with, is the inexperience. The vast majority of business start-ups fail. The same can be said when you're working with youth. The social enterprise would be the first business they've ever worked on.

Beyond that, I think getting access to funds. Our teams fundraise collectively and get access to different sources of funds, about $1.2 million last year, but across 66 university and college campuses, that isn't a lot. I think that's been a major hurdle as well.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

We want to go to our friends in Vancouver, because I think they have some specific examples.

[Vickie Cammack]

For me the number one challenge is not about starting. All kinds of incubators and programs are seeding initiatives. The number one challenge is financing for scale when profit is not the only motive. That's where the deep challenge arises and where I think the huge potential lies as well, creating new kinds of partnerships to do that.

[Al Etmanski]

I've just finished a book on the growth of social enterprise in this country. There is absolutely no shortage of innovation, creativity, and ingenuity in this country. As you've heard from our other colleagues in their presentations, there's no shortage of people who have found a way to prove that what they're doing works. The real challenge—and Bill Clinton said this himself—is to bring these solutions to scale. That's the challenge, as Vickie said.

If that is accepted as the challenge, then I would submit that we have to pay attention to the limitations of our existing welfare systems. Our federal welfare system and our provincial welfare systems are not enabling of that kind of creativity and ingenuity of the social enterprise sector or the non-profit sector generally, and they're not enabling of the so-called clients, the people who are the beneficiaries of these resources. This doesn't build resilience and the adaptive problem-solving capacity of people. We have a welfare system that was designed coming out of the Depression. That is party-line technology, not partisan—you understand what I mean. It's party-line technology, not even dial-up technology, and we are in a smartphone era.

I would invite you to think about social finance as a doorway into how we rethink how we take care of each other in Canada. Earlier, you mentioned the RDSP. When I met with Minister Flaherty around the concept, the first thing he asked me to do was to go and talk to all the other parties in Parliament, because he saw this as a non-partisan issue and as a way to reinvent how we take care of each other, for one small group of people. That, I think, is the magnificent opportunity that we have with social finance. All the other stuff.... Social impact bonds are great, but they're just tinkering. We need to rethink how we take care of each other.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Mr. Emmett, there are a few seconds left.

[Brian Emmett]

I think the other presenters have said it all: capacity, awareness, and, I would add, the constraints that are implicit in the Income Tax Act that constrain what charities are able to do with their earned income activities.