Public Safety Committee on May 15th, 2014

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, folks, for your presentations.

Just coming off the last line of questioning, in terms of some of these projects, do you have any idea how much money we're talking about on projects? Can you give us some examples? What are we talking about?

[Siobhan Harty]

In the Canadian context it hasn't really happened, but I can say that the one we are doing on literacy and essential skills is approximately $5 million. We can double-check that, but it's been announced. In other countries it really varies.

To my last point about scaling up approaches, it really does depend on the scale you want to bring to something.

In the UK I think that most of the projects would probably have been in the realm of $5 million to $10 million approximately. It depends on the community; it depends on the nature of the intervention.

I think the important point, though, is that you can scale it. The cost is scalable, and it depends on the intervention, the number of people involved in the project, and the environment in which you're doing it. Is it a small community or is it a major urban centre? I think all those variables can be decided upon when you're designing it.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

On the project of $5 million you mentioned, how much money would be government money and how much would be from private sector?

We do this in other areas—I forget the name of the program—youth employment, for instance. The Government of Canada will leverage some money, maybe pay 40% of the salary or something like that, and the private sector will put in some funds. I don't have a problem with that. What are we talking about here in that $5 million project?

[Siobhan Harty]

There's no set formula. It's a contract. Like every other contract, you would have to negotiate it.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

As I said at the last meeting and still maintain, one of the concerns that I have, especially in the area of public safety, is that this could be utilized as a way for governments, especially the federal government, to back out of some of its responsibilities and pass the funding for those responsibilities on to others at the business and the community levels.

You said one thing that bothered me a little. It was something along the lines that government doesn't necessarily hold those innovations. Why not?

There seems to be this great effort, in my view, to demonize government and what it can't do. There are lots of things that government does well. I'm not necessarily saying this particular government, but not everything it does is bad. We've got Public Safety, we've got Human Resources and Skills Development, we hire people like you for their expertise. They do have those innovations. Why would you say that government doesn't necessarily hold those innovations? That's why folks are hired.

[Siobhan Harty]

We're not the only people who have innovations.

I think in this model the assumption is that other people have innovations too. What if you partnered with them to work through those innovations together and think about how you could implement them in different contexts and different communities?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I think the difference is that's what government should be doing all the time anyway, holding consultations with provinces, individuals, industry to come up with those innovations. My concern is about innovative ideas. The government now is trying to find ways to leverage money from elsewhere while maybe lessening its own responsibility.

Let me go to your report on social finance. On page 19, it's the heading “Public safety” and the youth reach idea, which sounds to me like a really good project. Can you maybe expand a little on that?

What I see here, I like. Is that project near completion, or just started? What are the results of that one? Where would the other funding be coming from in this case, if there is other funding?

[Siobhan Harty]

Thanks for that,

All these projects mentioned here are concepts. This was a call for ideas from Canadians, as I said, to test their knowledge of and level of interest. It was, in a sense, a kind of market study, if you will. Trying to understand whether Canadians would be interested in partnering to do social finance-type projects. None of them have received funding, not from the Government of Canada anyway.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

So this one that's listed here under “Public Safety”, JVS Toronto YouthReach, is it in operation by somebody else's funding?

[Siobhan Harty]

It could be in operation, but we haven't funded this particular project. It was submitted to us as an idea.

[Blair McMurren]

The project has been scaled up slightly since 2001, but the concept was to scale it up on a larger scale using fully fledged federal funding.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

You have half a minute yet, Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Since 2001, regardless of where the feds are at on it, even if it's just a community fund, has it been operational at some point, and has it produced results? To me, It sounds like a great idea. That's why I'm asking.

[Siobhan Harty]

We have to get back to you. All they did was submit a concept to us, but I couldn't tell you what the record of success has been for this organization over time.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

If it's possible, that would be good.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you, Mr. Easter.

Mr. Garrison, please.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Thanks very much.

I'm sorry Mr. Richards didn't stay, because I feel we were like victims of a hit and run here in his characterization and what he had to say about Madam Doré Lefebvre's remarks.

Just to clarify, I want to say that we are skeptical on this side. We're not saying that there's no value in any individual projects, and we're not saying there are bad motivations for the non-profits or businesses. But I guess when we see what I would call “unseemly enthusiasm” for the idea by governments that are busy cutting back in all areas, then I think there are some serious questions that we need to answer.

The first of those would be on equity, for me. It's a question I raised the last time. We visited Calgary and saw all the wonderful crime prevention programs going on in Calgary, funded by the private sector. Calgary has the head operations of the oil sands. So they have lots of corporations there, both with resources and a need to buy positive public relations.

But if you go elsewhere, then we're not in that same situation of communities that have those large resources. They're dependent on the good will of small businesses, which is there, I'm not denying that, but they just don't have that same level of resources.

Is there a real concern that if we go with this model that those who already have will be able to benefit more from these programs?

[Siobhan Harty]

I don't know how to answer that. I've not seen that raised as a concern. I also think that you don't have to just raise money locally. This is a global market. That's why the UK, when it had the G-8 presidency, set up an international task force to look at this. For some of their projects In the UK, they have money from outside the country as well funding them.

With the EU, it's a little different, but they have service providers coming in from other countries, so service providers that already had an innovative way of doing X, in the Netherlands, who want to participate in a community project in the UK.

I've never heard that you just had to focus in on your local community to be able to get capital or to get a service provider. It's a market. The idea is to create a market. Those services should be able to travel to the business.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Can I get a bit on the direction of funds? For those elements of social financing that have a profit motive, I guess I'm worried there will be an incentive to choose the easy people to work with to achieve your goals, so to take the low-hanging fruit and then take a profit off that, rather than working with those who might be harder to deal with. Is that a concern that you've seen raised?

[Siobhan Harty]

That's definitely been a concern that has been raised in the UK. The need to set up the appropriate design and selection process is key. The rigour that you have to bring to the design is paramount to addressing some of the equity questions that you raised. So different approaches, like random control trials, other social science techniques, can be used to avoid this problem of “creaming” and other things.

It's the same kind of issue that you see elsewhere when there's testing, for instance, of pharmaceuticals. These are appropriate, ethical questions to raise. They're very much at the forefront of the design.

That's why it's important, as well, to have appropriate evaluation, to have a third party evaluate these projects.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

A third concern, then, that I would also raise is the question of accountability when you're dealing with vulnerable populations. Lots of times we talk about people who are homeless, drug addicted, or offenders coming out of prison. When those become private projects, where is the accountability?

In a public one, we have good supervision of who works there, we have good checks on who is employed there, and we have good complaint mechanisms. But in private projects, quite often we would have none of those.

[Siobhan Harty]

They're not private projects, because these are partnerships, right? So the government is still there.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

The employees are not public sector employees.

[Siobhan Harty]

But they could be from the charitable sector, correct? The service providers are from the charitable sector. That's the case in most countries. That sector is already receiving grants and contributions from governments and providing services. That hasn't changed; they're still there on the front lines.

There are different partners that have been brought in, definitely. As with any kind of multi-partner project, you have to have rigorous governance around it. That has to be put in place, definitely. It would be in the interest of government to ensure that structure is there, that oversight is there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Fine. Thank you very much.

Now for five minutes, Mr. Norlock, please.