Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.
The issues around social services are quite broad, so I want to focus some of my thoughts, because I don't know if social finance fits all of the services that are provided.
One case, for instance, is the fact that the Government of Canada transfers moneys for youth skills training. That was not working well. The outcomes were not good and so, of course, we came out with our Canada skills funding and partnered with business, partnered with the provinces, and partnered, of course, with the federal government so we could have those outcomes.
I think one of the challenges we have in Canada is that we're such a large country. The regions are all different and the needs are different. It makes it difficult to really have a program that fits every province or every region. In saying all of this, I really agree with what Dean Mulvale said about making sure that we do have the outcomes, that the goals are met, and are met in a timely fashion.
Then there was an interesting thought from Lars that was a value-for-money lens, and I just thought right away, whose lens are you looking through? That's the challenge: what lens do we look through to evaluate value for money? Are we having successes in the programs that we are moving forward on? I'd like to ask how you see that framework and how we could provide a good way of evaluating the programs. As I say, there are some programs you just cannot include. They're ongoing. But I think taxpayers definitely need to see value for money and see outcomes.
Maybe I could turn that over to Madam Guy to give us some thoughts about that.