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.