Public Safety Committee on May 13th, 2014

[Shawn Tupper]

Yes, I have many thoughts about that. I've been working on—

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

We've seen you smile. You must have some thoughts.

[Shawn Tupper]

I've been working in this area for the last eight years. Indeed I think social impact bonds are kind of the far end of the spectrum in terms of the kinds of tools that are available when one talks about social financing.

It's a little bit the holy grail. The concept essentially being that we try to create a marketplace that would allow private sector investment into areas where there may be the possibility through investment to reduce social ills. The design of it is such that the risk to the private sector.... It's basically a venture capital sort of approach, which is they put their money on the table, if they achieve the outcome that the project is designed to achieve then government pays them back a return on their investment.

So there is a risk to that investor. It's a well-articulated and well-understood risk. In the examples that we see around the world where other governments have experimented with social impact bonds, we have not yet seen any government launch a really theoretically pure social impact bond. All governments have actually put money forward in the front end as opposed to allowing the private sector to make that initial investment, so we've not really seen a good test of that model.

We spent two years looking at that model, particularly in the context of public safety and have concluded that we probably could not achieve a social impact bond in the context of the criminal justice system. The primary difference between our system and the British system, where they have several of these bonds going, is simply that we have actually achieved an awful lot in the context of our criminal justice system in terms of reducing recidivism rates and being able to work with offenders in ways that other criminal justice systems have not. So they have much more spread that they can actually achieve outcomes using this kind of tool. We have a much smaller gap in terms of what we might be able to achieve through those kinds of investments. So our conclusion is that they may be a bit risky.

Other kinds of investment tools, however, pay for performance, pooled investments, social enterprise models, trying to incent or incite small enterprises to actually find a way of commercializing some of the outcomes. Those are other mechanisms of social finance that we think are actually applicable in Canada and could have some success. There is a social finance community in Canada that is ambitiously looking at those models.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Do I still have some time, Mr. Chair?

Earlier on, Ms. Thompson, you talked about some of the proposals that have been in play and that were sowing some success, but the government, as I understood from your remarks, hasn't continued to fund them. But the programs have been able to secure funding either in the private sector or from provincial and municipal governments.

That again comes back to my concerns about a transferring of costs to other areas like what we've seen happen under various governments, not just this one. A proposal is working well, the feds decide they're going to pull the program, the province or somebody else feels obligated to pick it up for a while. On those programs that you said they've been able to secure funding, do you have examples of them that you can give us on the top of your head?

What's the federal funding been and where have they gone to continue the program?

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Very briefly, please; we can give you a chance at a further response down the road, but just briefly on Mr. Easter's time.

[Kathy Thompson]

Just briefly, with respect to some of those models that are funded and that get funded after, NCPC, the funding for the strategy, is very time-limited. It is up to a maximum of five years and it's non-renewable. It's really to foster evidence-based projects.

However, in some cases, as I said earlier, because of the demonstrated success, the funding is then continued through either provincial governments, municipal governments, community organizations, or foundations. Universities in some cases are also getting together on some of these projects. The reason is that cost savings have been demonstrated.

It's important to remember that the administration of justice falls back to the provinces, so in a lot of cases, because these initiatives have demonstrated that there is a reduced cost to the courts, to policing, to legal aid, for example, and a lot of those costs are provincial or municipal in some cases, it's in the interest of provinces and municipalities to continue the funding.

Very specific to some initiatives.... I did provide some in my presentation, but we'd be happy to follow up and provide those in writing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Ms. Thompson.

Ms. Doré Lefebvre, you now have the floor.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Tupper and Ms. Thompson, I would like to thank you for being here with us today and for giving us an idea of what is happening at Public Safety Canada. Let me also thank you for your presentation on

social financing.

I would like to go back to what my colleagues Mr. Garrison and Mr. Easter said about the role of social finance at Public Safety Canada. I too think it is relevant.

You said that it was still

“the far end of the spectrum”,

to quote Mr. Tupper who used the expression earlier. Based on your presentation, that is still a very small portion of your strategy.

Ms. Thompson, in your presentation, you talked about the approaches and the goals of Public Safety Canada and of the public you are targeting. Your main target is youth under 18 years of age, meaning young people who are not of legal age. I thought I heard you say that Public Safety Canada was addressing youth and street gang violence. I think the approach is excellent for identifying patterns, in particular with respect to reintegration. We want to make sure that young people do not enter the vicious circle of organized crime, as we can often see.

Following up on what Ms. Thompson said in her presentation, if I may, Mr. Chair, I would also like to introduce a notice of motion on a study that may well be undertaken by the committee. The motion reads as follows:

That the Committee undertake a study of youth involvement in street gangs in urban and rural areas, as well as aboriginal communities, in order to ascertain the root causes and emphasize how we can bolster the efficiency of prevention models; and that the Committee report its findings to the House of Commons.

I will introduce my motion in due course.

Let me continue with my questions for the witnesses.

Let's look at the last page where you talk about social finance definitions and mechanisms. You list four points. Are those approaches used for street gangs and people you consider are at risk and targeted by Public Safety Canada?

[Shawn Tupper]

We have a limited number of experiences using these because they are relatively new to the way we work, but I'll give you a hard example. Last year, the department entered into an agreement with Habitat for Humanity, where we are trying to use Habitat, whether it's on their job sites or at their rebuild stores. They have agreed to work with us and the Correctional Service of Canada to give employment to offenders so that they have one of the most important factors that leads to successful outcomes once they're out of prison.

We launched that last year at a national level where we will work with Habitat to see them offer employment opportunities. It required very little funding from the federal government, and frankly, the big aspect for us is ensuring that we have that partnership such that they can identify individuals to participate in their programs.

Another area that we're working on with the John Howard Society is, again, looking at small business enterprises where John Howard is working with individuals who have returned to the community, giving them employment and working with us such that we are able to look at their outcomes, measure what they're doing while they're either on parole or post-parole, and understand the kinds of things that seem to contribute to their ability to enter back into communities and remain successful.

There are other areas of our work where we haven't really been able to deploy these kinds of mechanisms but where we are hopeful that we would be working on youth employment projects, looking at youth who are at risk and trying to ensure that they have some of the critical factors to success. Employment would be one of those critical factors. Working with private sector or not-for-profit agencies, and again, finding different venues that allow them to become employed, stay employed, and work with us because we have to surround them with the right kinds of support to allow them the greatest chances of successes.

These are relatively new. We don't have a lot of examples of success and how they work. We've only been trying to engage in these kinds of things for a short period of time in a criminal justice context. In Canada, social financing models, such as I've described on this page, have existed for some time, particularly with respect to the environmental sector. There is very good evidence of the ability to look at investments that protect the environment, and they do so through public-private sector partnerships where we work with foundations and small enterprises to do environmental pursuits. That's far outside my expertise, but I know that's the area where there's been the most investment in this area.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you, Mr. Tupper.

Now to Mr. Payne for five minutes, please.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming today. That's some very interesting information that you're providing in terms of crime reduction. I was interested particularly in the statement you made in terms of the crime prevention and the million dollars contributed to the Calgary police program, the YARD program.

I was curious about how many individuals have gone through this program and for how long a period of time. What kind of metrics did you use to measure success? Were the police providing information? Were there surveys? There are a number of those kinds of questions that are popping up in my head. I'm wondering how we know for sure that this program is successful.

[Shawn Tupper]

I don't have all that data right at my fingertips here, but that's certainly stuff that we can provide you with. Certainly in the design, the proposal would outline how we propose to gather data and measure it. Indeed, where we have an ongoing project like that one, we can start giving you evidence that we've been collecting over the period of time that the project's been under way. We can certainly provide that to you.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Do we know how long or when the program started and how long it's going to run?

[Kathy Thompson]

My understanding is that the program was initially started in 2008 and targeted youth at risk between the ages of 10 and 17 years of age. I can't tell you at this time how many participants have been put through the program, but there are cohorts of participants. It's not one, as my colleague said earlier. We're not doing longitudinal studies where we're following a specific cohort. There are cohorts that go through the programs, so there would have been a number of cohorts going through the program over the years. We'll have to provide that after this meeting.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

It's obviously important for us to get the information to really understand whether in fact these programs are successful and what is used to measure them.

I think of criminals, and I tend to think of them as sneaky. So, if you're doing a survey, are they actually telling the truth on it? They may say they're not in youth gangs, but is somebody following them? How are they tracking them? These are the kinds of things that are going through my head to try to figure out whether in fact this money that's being spent is being well spent. I'm sure once we get some of the data, that'll be very helpful.

Do we have any ideas in terms of cost per individual in a program?

[Kathy Thompson]

Again, it would vary based on the program itself. The funding can vary from one program to another, and the percentage that's funded as well. In some cases we'll fund 100% of the program. In some cases the community will secure a certain contribution to offset some of the federal funding as well. The funding will vary from initiative to initiative. Some of the programs, as I said, are larger than others and will have different cohorts that go through them.

[Shawn Tupper]

Typically the cost per individual in a program will range somewhere between $5,000 and $10,000. Most of our programs are probably more towards the $5,000 range. A $10,000 program would be dealing with much more complex situations and issues, but typically it would be about $5,000 per participant.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Let me ask you another question then. In terms of the number of programs you have out there, how many have you found that have not been achieving your goals? Has the funding been pulled before the five years is up?

[Shawn Tupper]

The one thing that is a bit unique about this program is that it truly is experimental. That is the way we reconstructed it in 2008. It is why we end the funding in five years. It is not designed to give sustainable funding. So we very much monitor these programs, and indeed we do pull funding if the program is not working. But that it did not work is not a failure from our program design element, because we are trying to determine what the best practices are. I can't give you the specific number again, we have it in our reports, but we do pull funding when we determine that a project is not delivering the results that we were anticipating.

We also pull funding from programs when they're not doing what we asked them to do. For instance, if they're not doing the reporting, if they're not doing appropriate management, if they're not doing the governance that we expect of a project, we pull funding for those reasons as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Mr. Payne. I'm sorry your time is over now.

Mr. Rousseau, please.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

My thanks also go to Mr. Tupper and Ms. Thompson for joining us.

One of the items that concerns me and that the witnesses raised in the document they have shared with us is that crime is concentrated among a small number of offenders in regions where the crime rate is high.

The region I represent is mostly on the border. There is a lot of crime, which is not always caused by members of the local community. A number of crimes are committed. For instance, the region of Stanstead has been infamous for two years because of illegal immigrants and weapons trafficking. There is also smuggling of counterfeit goods. People are quite concerned about crime prevention. What do we have to do?

We also see that there have been a lot of cuts to the Canada Border Services Agency and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Because of that, the people are quite worried and say that it is all well and good to want to fund crime prevention efforts, but how useful will that be for their region in terms of the trafficking taking place along the border with more than 100 kilometres of forest?

That is why I think other measures would have been much more beneficial. As a result, Mr. Chair, allow me to introduce the following notice of motion:

That the Committee conduct a study into the sovereignty of all of Canada's borders. That the Committee, during this study, examine the impact of budget cuts and all delegation of authority and power at the border security level to other countries on the quality and number of Canadian jobs, on the search standards of entering people and food products and on the management of all entries into Canada, and this, with the objective of ensuring the best border security for Canadians as per Canadian standards, under Canadian control, and that the Committee report all its findings to the House of Commons.

As I said, the issue of crime is extremely tricky because the riding I represent is very rural.

So I would like to ask the following questions. What assessment tools could be used to determine whether a program or community organization is successful or not, especially in rural regions where everything is spread out and difficult to quantify? In human resources management jargon—I used to work in that sector—we talk a lot about quantitative control of programs. What parameters could help us assess the programs? Are they quantitative parameters? Could qualitative parameters also be considered as acceptable tools to use?

[Shawn Tupper]

Again, because of the nature of this program being experimental, we take the same models and we apply them in all sorts of different conditions. We will run the same program in aboriginal communities, rural communities, northern communities, and in urban environments, the whole point of which is to test those models and understand exactly the kinds of parameters you're looking at.

We are very much interested in taking a SNAP or a YAP or a YID project and running them in multiple sites to test the very kinds of things that we need to understand. What does it mean if you don't have that density of population? That tells us things about cost. It tells us things about the kinds of resources we need to see available in communities. It tells us who the best deliverers of those kinds of resources in a community are. Again, in a rural community, you don't necessarily have that concentration of the different kinds of services.

That is very much a part of what we're doing right now in trying to build this database and in building the evidence that tells us what works in Canada. We are running these sites and doing them in different contexts so that we really do understand those variables.

As I said, we've only been building up this database since 2008. We're only starting to have an understanding of what works. I think it is a little bit of what allows for the conversation you're having today; that is, where you go from here in terms of understanding what works in the Canadian context for crime prevention, what we can measure, and what kinds of investments we want to make in Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

You have half a minute.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

How can we be sure of the good faith of the private sector with a prevention program like that?

[Shawn Tupper]

I have, over a number of years, been working with the financial sector, particularly when I was exploring the concept of social impact bonds as it might apply in the criminal justice system. It was not hard, at all, to find people who were willing to talk with us about their interests.

Calgary is a great example. The private sector in the city of Calgary is very actively engaged. We see it in the context of social housing, dealing with homelessness. Frankly, they have an abundance of money from the private sector because the companies understand that their investments as good corporate citizens make a difference in the communities in which they work.

They also understand that in a city like Calgary where there are labour market shortages, keeping people on the straight and narrow and on the right side of the law, particularly looking at youth, speaks to who they're going to employ down the road.

In Calgary, we also see, around oil and gas investment, that those companies have very strong relationships with aboriginal communities. They spend a lot of money in those communities to try to ensure and improve the health of those communities. In working with us, they've been very intrigued at these concepts—particularly the area we work in—from a perspective that they can better invest the kinds of moneys they're giving to aboriginal communities to see better outcomes.

We've had a lot of interest, and as I said, there is a very active social finance community in Canada. We'd be more than happy to provide the committee with names of the leaders in the social finance community in Canada who could come and speak to you as witnesses.