Thank you very much.
I want to thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to return to speak today. I am pleased to be here with my colleagues from the Department of Finance and the Canada Revenue Agency to address any final questions you may have, or indeed to provide you with clarification on particular points.
I would first like to take a moment to thank the committee for the valuable work you have undertaken with this study.
I also acknowledge all the stakeholder groups who took the time to contribute to your study.
Since I last spoke to you, the Government of Canada has announced new measures in Budget 2015 to grow the social finance marketplace in Canada.
First, Budget 2015 proposes that registered charities be permitted to invest in limited partnerships with some conditions. My colleague from the Department of Finance will speak about that in his remarks.
Second, the budget announced the forthcoming launch of a social finance accelerator initiative to be led by ESDC. This announcement follows up on a commitment made by the government in the 2013 report of the National Call for Concepts for Social Finance, called “Harnessing the Power of Social Finance”, to bring together innovative, not-for-profit, and private sector organizations in order to sharpen their social finance ideas into investment-ready proposals.
Greater detail on this initiative will be made available in the coming weeks. lt's expected to involve advisory services, mentorship, brokering, and investor introductions to help fast-track promising social finance ventures to a greater stage of investment readiness.
Finally, I want to advise the committee of an upcoming event. The last regular meeting of the international Social Impact Investment Taskforce will take place in Toronto next month. The task force was created during the United Kingdom's G-8 presidency in 2013, with the aim of catalyzing the development of a global market for social finance.
The former minister of employment and social development, the Honourable Jason Kenney, had nominated me and Tim Jackson of the MaRS Centre for Impact Investing to sit on the task force.
This task force meeting will be hosted by the MaRS Centre for Impact lnvesting, and it offers a unique opportunity to profile Canadian approaches to social impact investment and benefit from the perspectives of task force members, who might have advice on how to advance the development of the Canadian market. Every task force member country that has hosted a meeting has used the opportunity to organize panels profiling aspects of their market that distinguish them from other countries.
These panels have created important cross-national learning opportunities. For the Canadian Task force meeting, there is a proposed panel on Aboriginal models that will likely elicit strong interest. A proposed panel on using social finance to advance international development will also be of great interest, given the government's record on innovation.
Thank you again for this opportunity to appear as a witness.