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?