Status of Women Committee on Jan. 30th, 2018

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to the witnesses for the work you're doing for indigenous women.

Donald, thank you for your honesty and for your 25 years of work and what you've shared with us.

For my first question, I just want to get an understanding, Adam and Donald, when you talk about a social impact bond. On the one hand, I'm looking at this and I want to expand it across the country and see what we can do. On the other hand, there have been some not too good experiences in the U.K. Some of the investors in the social bond have used some of the homeless individuals as commodities, and it has been a bit negative, so I'm cautious.

I want to get your perspective on what we could do here differently to avoid the kind of pitfalls that occurred in the U.K.

Donald, is there a way to expand this in Canada, if needed? I'd like to hear from both sides.

[Adam Jagelewski]

Sure. I think the first point I'd like to make is that a social impact bond shouldn't be thought of as a blunt instrument that will solve a social problem. The core principle of a social impact bond is to actually wrap support around individuals and give them the support they need in order to achieve a better life, or to advance them in some way, shape, or form. I think that if a bond is designed without taking into consideration those unintended consequences or seeks to game the system for the betterment of an investor, that's a poorly designed bond or partnership agreement.

I think it's important for us to make sure that the right intentions behind using this instrument are put forth at the outset. If that happens first, then we can think about the social issue and the best approach to tackling it and determine whether or not a social impact bond is one of the tools we want to use. I think we should be very frank when it's not, and not try to just force it down that pathway.

As Don mentioned, I haven't met an investor who's seeking to commoditize anybody for the profit purpose. Don has mentioned his investors are in it for the social impact first, for the betterment of those the project is working for. I hope it stays that way as this tool matures, and if there is more money floating around, maybe that unintended aspect of the investment sediment might creep in, but I'm hoping that it doesn't.

I think it starts in the proper design of the tool.

[Donald Meikle]

I think social investment also can be really good, but again here my honesty is going to bite me in the butt. There are some really good community-based organizations out there, but there are also some really bad ones. We call them “pamphlet programs”. They come out with a piece of paper and tell you the wonderful things going on in our community, but they do nothing for the people.

If you're honest in what you're looking for in the bond, there's nothing to be scared of. That was one of my biggest questions: are you scared of the bond? Absolutely I was not scared of the bond. The bond and my investors helped me get through the government bureaucracy when they tried to change the contract midstream. We had an agreement with the deputy minister to pay us so much extra for the moms, because we were getting nothing for them. Halfway through, they took that away without an explanation, but our investors stepped in and asked what was going on. We had one of our investors tell the minister at that time, “If you touch one word in this contract, we'll see you in court.”

If you always look at the worst, you can always find a reason not to do anything. I think when people are making an investment, investing in people, we should be looking at the reasons for doing it and how we can do it most easily and to the most benefit.

At the end of the day, we shouldn't be here to make a lot of money. We should be here to make a living. When you're looking at your investment, look at who's going to ultimately win. Is it going to be the community-based organization, the investor, or is it going to be our moms and our children in our case?

When we weighed all that, ultimately all this extra that is happening in Saskatoon, because we have a community that cares, far outweighs any risk we have in the bond.

[Lisa Lalande]

Often, in our experience, the intervention gets conflated with the financial mechanism of the social impact bond, and they're quite different. If I may, I'll reframe some of the things that Donald mentioned.

Defining impact is the most complicated aspect of a social impact bond. Defining impact means being able to track and measure outcomes. In our view, the most successful examples of impact are ones where the beneficiaries define what impact means for them. Overall, within the sector, the measurements base, the ability to track and report on outcomes and impact, is extremely nascent. Not many organizations have the capability to do that, and social impact bonds typically rely on an existing evidence base, which means the ability to be able to track and report.

One of the reasons we focused on What Works Centres and an outcomes fund is that it builds the infrastructure required so that more organizations like Don's can participate, and there's an opportunity to identify and scale up new solutions. However, the ecosystem in Canada needs assistance in developing its understanding of impact and end-user focus, which means the beneficiary focus.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Donald, when he was first starting—and you won't have a chance to respond—but then Adam with MaRS, and Mowat.... There's a crisis today: 52% of indigenous youth are in foster care, and it's totally unacceptable, so I'm really curious to learn more about a different method of delivering what we're doing now. Thank you for sharing this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

That's excellent. We do have a short time. Rachael, you're going for three and a half.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Very quickly, Donald, could you comment on how your organization is able to be more flexible and more effective, perhaps, in the services it's delivering, than perhaps a government-led program would be?

[Donald Meikle]

We're not scared of embarrassing government. We're not scared of the ramifications. We're an organization that believes in our kids. When we first started our housing, we started with one home, and it was for young indigenous women who were involved in the sex trade. We now have a total of 15 homes.

It was kind of interesting, and I just have to tell you this story: we had the then justice minister with the NDP come to open two of our homes and talk about our homes. He asked what we wanted these homes for. I said I wanted these homes for young women who were involved in the sex trade, and even those in care from the ages of 17 to 23. He announces that day that these were going to be two homes for young women 17 to 23, with some supported structured independent living.

For years after that, I was ribbed by the bureaucrats. The idea was that legislatively, we can't do that. That makes me think it should be you who do the press release and tell the people that you and our province don't want our indigenous women and our young women looked after. We've just done things because they're the right thing to do.

A lot of times, the bureaucrats are scared to do things because of their jobs. I'll shut the heck up, but I've done many presentations, and a lot of times it seems the politicians get it, but it gets lost after that in the translation down the line. Even when I talk about impact bonds or when I talk about contributing citizens, the politicians get it and the bureaucrats don't. I don't know if they don't want to get it. They're not that stupid. They are just scared of what's going to happen if they make the wrong decision.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Adam, obviously in the Heart and Stroke Foundation you have a good example of the innovation in this approach. Could you comment further on why a social impact bond allows for innovation?

[Adam Jagelewski]

The best example of innovation in a social impact bond is the ability to free up a non-profit service deliverer like Sweet Dreams to run their program without having to report on the activities they're doing month by month and year by year. In the construct of a social impact bond, you determine the outcomes up front and let the Dons of the world do their work. To me, that's the biggest innovation that this financial innovation allows.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Excellent. This has been an excellent panel. I'd really like to thank the four of you for coming. Thank you, Donald, Lisa, Joanne, and Adam.

Before we finish for the evening, I just have one thing I need consensus on. Two of our organizations who have already appeared have requested.... They have missed the deadline for their submissions. They are the Native Women's Association of Canada and the Prisoners' Legal Services. The Native Women's submission is coming; the Prisoners' Legal Services one is already here. Do we have consensus to receive the reports?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Great. We're moving on with that.

Just for your own scheduling purposes, from 3:30 to 4:30 we'll have regular committee business on Thursday and the subcommittee from 4:30 to 5:30. That's just so you can make your own schedules and we can discuss more.

Today's meeting is adjourned.