Evidence of meeting #51 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was organizations.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:10 p.m.
Doctor of Philosophy Candidate, Ryerson University, As an Individual
Yes, exactly.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Rodger Cuzner Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS
On the other aspect about more complex programs maybe being crowded out, I really appreciate your comment about how Canadian not-for-profits have been run on a set of principles. Is there a risk in getting a mix between the risk and a mission statement, a risk that investors are willing to undertake and a mission statement by an organization?
5:10 p.m.
Professor, Ryerson University, Department of Politics and Public Administration, As an Individual
I think marketization is always at a certain tension with mission. The emphasis here is certainly going to be for the private investor to try to get a good outcome in terms of their profit. That may put some pressure upon the mission of the non-profit that's actually delivering the service to do things in particular ways to try to get to a particular outcome.
It all depends on how you're measuring outcomes. Designing that measurement, what we're looking at, and who is doing the measuring become really critical in these cases, and that gets quite complex. That may have an impact in terms of the actual type of quality of service that's being offered.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Phil McColeman
Thank you very much.
We'll move on to our next questioner, Mr. Mayes.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Colin Mayes Conservative Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thank our guests.
I come from the business sector, so I always believe that risk motivates results. I guess that's a little bit of the issue.
We got sidetracked here on the provision of social services, but there are all kinds of other things that are possible with social finance. I know of Lions Clubs that have put in seniors housing, and there are the Rotary Clubs, and there are the friendship centres, with training and education. There are those that have outcomes you can measure. It's difficult to measure the outcomes of a women's shelter, for instance, because what's the outcome? Is it that there are fewer women in the shelter or that they're adjusted to maybe getting back in the workforce? It's a lot more difficult.
I think we have to be careful that we don't put everything in the same package, because there are different opportunities, and they're not all measurable, which is a challenge. I totally agree. But there's another thing we have to look at too: does government have oversight in the provision of those services? Is there any really truly objective evaluation of the programming and what they do, and of sunset clauses and all that type of thing?
I said that risk motivates results. Quite often, maybe it's a good thing that you set out quantitative objectives that you want to have provided with the money supplied. Maybe the charitable organization or group could have a better handle on that, which maybe wouldn't be influenced by some of the outside influences in the public service.
In looking at a possible framework so that this could work, one thing we heard from several organizations is that in our tax rules, for instance, there's a barrier to any profit. Then there's the financial sector in terms of banks putting out money to finance various programs, because they have policies that might be a challenge.
Would you have any ideas about any sort of government policy that would have to be changed to accommodate this, or even any ideas about financial institutions that would have to somehow come on board?
5:10 p.m.
Professor, Ryerson University, Department of Politics and Public Administration, As an Individual
Those are very good questions. I think SIBs do pose some challenges in regard to this.
The way the SIBs are currently set up, I think the non-profits simply become the deliverers of the service, so that all of the financial dealings go through the private sector. In that regard, I guess they've been designed in a way in which the rules don't have to be changed, but really what that does is limit the role of non-profits—and I think this is another issue you raise here—to being simply the delivery agents. They're not as involved as they potentially could be with some of the suggestions you're making.
5:15 p.m.
Doctor of Philosophy Candidate, Ryerson University, As an Individual
One interesting thing about the SIB model is that it's being developed right now. It's shifting and changing, and a lot of the literature is just trying to get a handle on it.
One model is to contract with an intermediary, for government to contract with the intermediary. It's the intermediary that designs the project, finds the private investors, finds the service agencies, and contracts with the service agencies.
Another model could be that government works directly with the service provider or works with the non-profit. That non-profit either delivers the service or partners with other non-profits to deliver the service model. That could be one way in which the relationship between government and this non-profit would be quite a bit closer, right?
There's a question as to how these would actually operate and who that intermediary is. Also, does this prevent the non-profit from actually informing government policy or talking to government? There's that question too.
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
Colin Mayes Conservative Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Right, and one other thing that I always believe is that successful government programs are always community driven. That's the advantage of SIBs.
It's the fact that a program that's community-driven is going to have a community behind it, whereas if it's a top-down government program—it's a big country, with different regions and different needs—sometimes the program gets lost because it doesn't fit the particular region of the country or community. I think there is an advantage to that. Do you see the advantage to—
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Phil McColeman
Thank you.
The time was up about 10 seconds ago, but that's fine. I'm giving some latitude to all members in terms of their comments and questions.
Madam Groguhé, please carry on.
5:15 p.m.
NDP
Sadia Groguhé NDP Saint-Lambert, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thank the witnesses for their testimony. I find the viewpoints on the implementation measures very interesting, as well as on the analysis, the thought that goes into this, and the research. I find this very relevant in the sense that it leads us to probe—and we have done so on several occasions since the beginning of this study— the challenges and limits of social finance.
As you mentioned, decision-makers do not have statistics yet—or have very few—that allow them to evaluate whether social financing instruments are effective and allow us to attain objectives. I would like to know what issues arise when you want to collect relevant data.
5:15 p.m.
Professor, Ryerson University, Department of Politics and Public Administration, As an Individual
Data is, I think, absolutely critical. To know if they're going to be effective or not, we're going to need substantial data. That means, obviously, far more than counting bums in seats. It means actually using statistics from organizations like Stats Canada, being able to attach those to projects, trying to evaluate the outcomes of things like recidivism within the larger context of other factors happening within society. This requires, I think, some significant type of investment, in terms of the analysis and the importance of evidence-based data. That is a challenge with SIBs, but I think it's a challenge more generally in terms of evaluating the outcomes of programs.
5:15 p.m.
NDP
Sadia Groguhé NDP Saint-Lambert, QC
According to what you are saying, the experiment that began in 2010 in the United Kingdom was interrupted in 2014.
Do we have enough hindsight today to determine why this did not work, and how it might have worked? Can we determine those indicators?
5:20 p.m.
Professor, Ryerson University, Department of Politics and Public Administration, As an Individual
I don't think we have enough evidence. The initial report was that there was a very mild positive effect on recidivism rates; however, the sample that was selected was not a random sample. It was actually made up of people who had volunteered for the program. So the change there could have been simply based upon sample bias.
5:20 p.m.
Professor, Ryerson University, Department of Politics and Public Administration, As an Individual
In a case similar to that one, they had negative results. The results are quite mixed, and I think they were also potentially influenced by other sorts of factors. As I said, it's too bad the experiment didn't run longer, because we would have had more evidence to try to make a determination on this. Unfortunately, in the case of Peterborough, we don't really have that.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
Sadia Groguhé NDP Saint-Lambert, QC
Do you think that at this time we are in a position to determine what social challenges social finance could allow us to meet?
You mentioned that the changes that could be made could be made without having to turn to social impact bonds or SIBs.
Do we have some idea of the fields in which SIBs could be used? Could SIBs be implemented, and to what extent?
5:20 p.m.
Professor, Ryerson University, Department of Politics and Public Administration, As an Individual
Do you want to try to....
5:20 p.m.
Doctor of Philosophy Candidate, Ryerson University, As an Individual
I can tell you that the popular policy areas we've seen so far have been around recidivism. There have been several projects in the U.K., as we talked about. Also there's a New York City recidivism project that's currently ongoing, as well as homelessness projects, unemployment projects, early childhood education projects, and health care projects.
One thing I think is a challenge with some of these models is they could be a little too targeted and perhaps ignore wider social policy areas that need to be invested in that also affect social impact. We can think about that in terms of homelessness, the cost of housing in a city and those sorts of things. Access to child care could affect the success of these programs. There's a need to keep that in mind.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Phil McColeman
Thank you very much.
We move on to our last questioner, Mr. Boughen.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Ray Boughen Conservative Palliser, SK
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and let me say welcome on behalf of the folks here. We're glad you're sharing your time with us.
How do you account for the difference in the social financial situations? We've heard from some witnesses who say they have thousands of dollars or millions of dollars in social programs and social financing. We're hearing this afternoon that you have to be a little careful of what you do. You don't want to get burned by putting money into operations that go clunk.
How do you differentiate beforehand? It's easy to differentiate afterward. If you have a big pot of gold you know you've done well.
5:20 p.m.
Professor, Ryerson University, Department of Politics and Public Administration, As an Individual
I'm not sure there's a real answer to that except that you have to investigate what you're investing in very carefully and determine whether the type of project is well designed and what the likelihood of the outcome is based upon the quality of the players you have around the table. I think it's important in terms of the service delivery agent for example that they have the kinds of experience with the community, that they have a track record and in terms of delivering those types of services, and they know the types of populations they are working with. Obviously if you have that in play, that's going to improve your chances of success.
I think the investor are coming in with their eyes wide open and are willing to engage in the project, and also willing to give and respect what the non-profit provider is going to do in terms of the community and not try to interfere too much in terms of their knowledge base.
I think those are all the important factors that will play out.
5:25 p.m.
Doctor of Philosophy Candidate, Ryerson University, As an Individual
I would also add there is some literature on the difference between larger non-profits that are able to hire lawyers and accountants to provide for the risk they could be entering into with these projects. This is a challenge for smaller non-profits that simply don't have the funds, but are still perhaps desperate for that money and so might enter into one of these projects without perhaps having that—
5:25 p.m.
Professor, Ryerson University, Department of Politics and Public Administration, As an Individual
Fully realizing.