Finance committee  Correct. Perfect.

Finance committee  Quebec is absolutely a model. What we were talking about here is some federal legislation, which is why I didn't address Quebec. Before I came to this session, I just presented with someone from Quebec on the social economy, writ large, and how effective that is, and the kind of

Finance committee  Well, Desjardins is a leader, for example, in this area--

Finance committee  Absolutely.

Finance committee  This is actually one of the barriers. There's a perception that it's interfering with for-profit. If you look at what they've done with the CIC model in the U.K. and with the L3C model in the U.S., you'll see that they've addressed this. They put provisions on things. There's an

Finance committee  In the United Kingdom, they have what they call community interest companies. In the United States they have L3Cs, low-profit limited liability corporations. We've looked at both of these to see what they could do to increase access to capital for those engaged in social purpose

Finance committee  I think it's basic awareness. I really think people don't have a sense that there's a social enterprise sector in Canada and how vibrant it is. In the U.K. we've had some great champions. They've been able to push it through a social finance agenda. We have been without those cha

Finance committee  I agree. It's all quite new, and I think just learning from what's happening in the U.K. and the U.S., we can now.... They've been doing it for a couple of years, particularly this new hybrid structure. We can take their learnings and accelerate their learnings for Canada, make i

Finance committee  Thank you very much. My name is Allyson Hewitt, and I am the director of social entrepreneurship at the MaRS Discovery District here in Toronto. It's one of the nodes of SIG, the Social Innovation Generation. SIG is a national network, a collaborative of the McConnell Foundation