In terms of an active consultation process, no. There's no advisory board of charitable organizations that meets with us on a regular basis, but as with many other government departments, we regularly meet with stakeholders.
I would say that over the years we meet with stakeholders in the sector to discuss various issues. Imagine Canada was mentioned. That's a stakeholder group we meet with fairly frequently in my department. It serves as an umbrella group and that facilitates quite an energetic discussion.
In other cases, we just meet with individual organizations that might have an idea they want to share with us about a program or an intervention that they think might work within the department's mandate.
In the area of social finance per se, there have been task forces. There was an ad hoc task force created out of MaRS in Toronto in 2010. Since then there has been a national advisory board to that G-8 Social Impact Investment Taskforce that I mentioned earlier. As well, it's ad hoc. It doesn't have any long-term standing, but it did publish a report. I think, given the representation that was on that national advisory board from across the country, it does serve as one voice. It's not a model, but it's one voice, and there are many others out there.
I think, as my colleagues would agree, part of our responsibilities is to be able to meet with stakeholder groups and hear what their ideas and their concerns are.