Thank you.
There's some really cool stuff happening in your province. Thanks for sharing that.
Good afternoon, honourable committee members. My name is Lisa Lalande. I'm the executive lead for the Mowat Centre's not-for-profit research hub. I am joined by my colleague, senior policy associate Joanne Cave.
Mowat NFP is a research arm of the Mowat Centre, which is an independent public policy think tank located at the School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Toronto.
Mowat NFP focuses on applied policy research relevant to systemic issues facing the non-profit and charitable sector, both in Ontario and across Canada. Our research agenda looks at how this sector can be effective in creating thriving communities and improving the well-being of Canadians. We examine issues such as sector labour reform, finance and funding, data, and legislation and regulation from a systems lens, looking at how individual issues are connected to and impacted by each other as a collective whole. More recently this has translated into research on measuring outcomes and impact, looking at what is needed to better understand and evaluate which interventions are working and which aren't.
Many people participate in programs or services without any significant or lasting impact because those programs fail to address the root causes: violence, trauma, hunger, illness, and poverty. These root causes are historical and complicated and cannot be isolated and tackled individually. Applying a systems lens to the concept of impact recognizes that the social and environmental issues the sector works to address are highly interconnected.
We understand that a social impact bond is one tool being considered to address the proportion of indigenous women in Canada's criminal justice system. While we cannot speak to the experience of indigenous women in the criminal justice system, we will focus on the challenge of understanding impact and how government funding can be used to support the best results possible.
Selecting and measuring outcomes is often the most challenging aspect of a social impact bond contract. Given that, our presentation will advance two key recommendations: the establishment of a Canadian What Works Centre, a unique type of evidence institution that is proven to be successful in the U.K. and the U.S.A., and the creation of a national outcomes fund, a vehicle that could provide capital to invest in proven interventions and explore innovative approaches. Our briefing note complements this presentation by outlining several key considerations for implementing a social impact bond.
Why build the evidence base? Governments are increasingly facing greater scrutiny about how funds are spent, what outcomes are achieved with those funds, and how evidence of what works is driving the policy-making process. A strong evidence base is an important component of readiness for outcomes-based funding arrangements. This is particularly important for social impact bonds, which rely on proven, tested programs and interventions to attract investors. High-quality evidence is required to assess community needs, select appropriate interventions, define outcomes, and clarify how they will be measured.
Evidence institutions are organizations that possess the technical expertise to review and produce robust policy research as a resource to the public and to policy-makers. While Canada has existing research expertise, we have very few evidence institutions that focus specifically on indigenous criminal justice issues.
What Works Centres emerged in the U.K. and are one type of evidence institution that could be adopted in the Canadian context. What Works Centres are typically independent from government. They are unique from other evidence institutions because they focus on engaging end-users of evidence—for example, front-line staff or beneficiaries. What Works Centres put end-users at the centre of the process, and they often shape how the evidence is collected, interpreted, and used.
For example, the U.K. What Works Centre for Crime Reduction focuses on how front-line police officers understand new evidence about policing and change their own behaviours as a result. Another What Works centre in the U.K., the Centre for Ageing Better, puts the perspectives of seniors first when developing their research agenda. In doing so, centres use citizen input to ensure that the programs and services address what matters to them. This in turn results in cost savings for governments and funders because resources are allocated more effectively.
Our research indicates that a What Works Centre, co-led with existing indigenous organizations and research centres, has the potential to make a significant difference on issues such as this one. Using this model, indigenous stakeholders could co-lead the organization's governance model, co-design the research agenda, and define what outcomes and impacts could look like.
But who pays for this—the exploration of new approaches and the scaling of proven ones?