Thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable members.
My name is Andrew, and for about 10 years, I've been focusing on supporting social entrepreneurs and impact leaders to address the root causes of systemic inequity. These people and organizations are working on some of the most complex and persistent problems in Canada: climate change, poverty and housing, mental health and addictions, colonization, racism, gender violence, food security and more.
I'm here today in hopes of bringing these organizations and people and their value to Canadian society into your thinking as you consider Canada's approach to focus on commercialization of IP. I think this perspective will be a bit different from what you've heard so far. Thank you for this opportunity to discuss.
I'm joining you from the unceded and unsurrendered territory of the Okanagan Syilx people in Kelowna, B.C.
I'm the managing director and co-founder at Purppl. It stands for purposeful people. We're a social enterprise. We help social entrepreneurs and impact leaders build sustainable enterprises that address these inequities. We do this by coaching the leaders of these organizations. We have about 25 active projects at any given time—50 to date so far this year—and we operate in B.C., Alberta, Ontario and Quebec.
Our clients and alumni are about 70% led by women and 80% incorporated as a non-profit. Their average size is about $1.7 million in annual revenue. Many of these are led by and serving folks who are Black, indigenous, people of colour and other racialized communities. We're also a co-owner of Thrive Impact Fund. We do direct investment into social enterprise and social purpose organizations on Vancouver Island and in the B.C. interior.
What's a social purpose organization? It's an organization with a mission to advance social and environmental objectives. They are mostly non-profits, of course. There are some private for-profit organizations, as long as they're focused on social environmental causes, and some hybrid community contribution companies like Purppl. They often have grants and donations, but they also have significant customer revenue.
They usually operate in three areas of the economy: community-based non-profits like food banks, non-profit housing providers, and sports and recreation associations. There are also business associations like chambers of commerce and critical government services like hospitals and universities.
The economic contribution of this sector is about 8.3% of Canada's GDP, or about $192 billion a year in annual economic impact, and it's growing. There are 2.4 million people employed in this sector, which is about one in 10 workers, and about 77% of those people in the sector are women. This is as large as oil and gas, forestry, agriculture and retail. Meanwhile, there's no minister in government.
Our recommendations are the following.
Include social purpose organizations and social enterprise. There's a large economic impact and a priceless social benefit.
Give social purpose organizations—SPOs—and SEs—social enterprises—a home in government so that they can be included in Canadian policy programming, budget frameworks and committees like this.
For IP, focus not just on patents. SPOs need support around contracts, licensing and legal costs, just like SMEs.
Support the leaders. They're underpaid, under-resourced and working on really hard problems. If you're going to support entrepreneurs with things like coaching and mentorship, you also need to support SPOs and social enterprises so they can expand their contribution.
In terms of community benefit, much of the value of Canada's IP accrues to private interests and a small number of shareholders. Let's consider Canada and the Canadian people as shareholders. When the government invests money in private companies and IP is developed, consider a mechanism and conditions by which the government retains royalty, shares or licensing, with the value accruing back to Canadians. If there's a sale, exit or ongoing revenue, this could be used to fund ongoing investment into social innovation and SPOs.
Accelerate impact investing. Developing IP requires significant investment, so when SPOs and SEs become investment-ready, help them. Help investors understand the unique needs of SPOs. Both support commercialization.
Measure social impact. Consider income tax revenue, employment benefit and the value of social services to Canadians for this sector. If we do that well and communicate it well, it will be very clear why SPOs need to be considered in commercialization and IP strategy.
If you want to talk, let's connect. SPOs are uniquely positioned to build a just, regenerative economy that upholds collective well-being, equity and the health of air, land and water. SPOs and social enterprises need to be included in Canadian policy, program and budget frameworks.
This is a really large movement. Let's build social impact together.