Public Safety committee  Let me give you an example. When I was director of the youth detention centre, I found out that about 92% of the offences being committed by youths who were coming into custody were happening late at night. We had an NBA team in town in those days, so I went to them. I received federal funding and provincial funding to start a program that I called Night Hoops.

Public Safety committee  First, with respect to our youth justice system, the last time I looked, in British Columbia we have per capita the lowest youth in custody in Canada. We have worked hard. When I was the director of Burnaby youth custody centre, we could have over 200 youth in there at overcrowded times.

Public Safety committee  In terms of community contribution companies?

Public Safety committee  Certainly the level of exposure that taxpayers' dollars would go to would be limited through that. We now limit it at roughly $32 million a year. Designating just a portion of that for community contribution companies would be the intent.

Public Safety committee  That's right.

Public Safety committee  The flow-through tax credit is now only available to, primarily, mining associations, the mining industry, development, and high tech. With fluctuations in the economy, there has been less take-up in that. The last time I looked at it, last year, I think we were maybe a couple of million dollars short of full exposure to that.

Public Safety committee  Certainly. First, I think one thing that has been referenced already is looking at the CRA rules for charities and support for social enterprise within those, so removing some of the restrictions that the Canadian charities have that prevent them from realizing the full creative entrepreneurial potential they might otherwise have.

Public Safety committee  At that point British Columbia was leading Canada in a dramatic fashion. We had lots of interest in the reports we had done. I had previously been the minister for health promotion, and we developed a model called ActNow, which was developing policies in all areas. We created in that model an assistant deputy ministers' committee that reviewed the service plan of every ministry and ensured that, like the Ministry of Highways, it had to have something about health promotion as part of that model.

Public Safety committee  Yes. I was government caucus chair when I took on that responsibility of meeting with them. The caucus chair for the NDP government, Shane Simpson, was and continues to be a good friend. We were looking at different models for doing that. Among the principles of innovation are coordination, cooperation, and consultation.

Public Safety committee  Okay. I was getting wound up there.

Public Safety committee  And I timed myself before. Okay. I'm happy to wrap up, then, and as we say in our legislature—and I'm sure you say in yours—it's question period, not answer period, so I'll be able to respond as I so choose to questions provided. Thank you, Chair.

Public Safety committee  I don't know whether we can borrow from the infrastructure models that have been used federally, provincially, and locally for decades in terms of the one-third sharing, but certainly for the local governments, and in my experience as a mayor, we were also very concerned about crime, crime reduction, and recidivism.

Public Safety committee  I think that's fair.

Public Safety committee  Thank you, Chair, and thank you, members of the committee. I hope to provide a little bit of context for social innovation, my experience with it, and my vantage points, a bit about the B.C. experience, and then some ideas that may evolve from that. We've been working on it in B.C. since back in the days of public-private partnerships in the early 2000s.