I don't think there are too many people who come to Ottawa asking for less money. There is a notion that government is the banker. Social financing is an idea that government is a facilitating partner with civil society in achieving a social return on investments. Social financing is the specialty of ESDC. This is certainly a well-developed concept in Great Britain, Australia, and to a certain degree the United States. It's developing in Canada, but it's still in its infancy here. Its regulatory legislative frameworks aren't even close to being in place to implement this.
Having said that, there's $4.1 million available in the road map over five years for the official language minority communities to work with ESDC on social financing initiatives to see what can be done. It's a big term that means a lot of things. Generally, when we think about investments, we're looking for a monetary return. In social financing, you would fund a project but you're looking for a social return on your investment.
A social financing idea might be if the community group in Thetford Mines, for example, MCDC, expanded their office. If they bought their building, owned their building, and if they expanded their office and rented it out to other community groups, it would become an asset for them. It would turn a profit that they would be able to then turn back into the community. It would be a for-profit operation within a non-profit. That's a social financing idea.
Paying for returns...the question that was asked had to do with how success is measured. Let's say you want to see a decrease of 1% in youth unemployment in a specific region and if you can achieve that, the public partner will give you x amount of dollars. The community sector would go out and work on that. If they reduce it by a certain amount, they will be paid. That's another social financing idea.
We're very excited about the concept. It has worked very well in other jurisdictions. ESDC is the expert.