Human Resources committee  I'd be happy to. It's a fun question, but I'm not sure I'm very prepared for it. I think my colleague from Desjardins in Montreal outlined it pretty well. You get cooperatives that are very sophisticated and bring the same commitment to execution and discipline that you find in the private sector, and you also find co-ops that are smaller and built around more informal relationships.

Human Resources committee  The first thing is to make that a target of what the non-profit is trying to do. It's to build a culture that accepts non-profits as strong business actors, with a clear mission that wins out in balance against any sort of for-profit goal. Again, what I've seen in Great Britain and also in the United States are very strong intermediaries that are non-profit or charitable in their focus but are active with private investment and private capital.

Human Resources committee  Is this for me?

Human Resources committee  Yes, I think there is. I think the fact is that the government hasn't suffered the main cost of the extreme clarity that currently exists. In other words, it's hurting a sector that doesn't really have much of a voice and has generally not been well elevated. I do think it can be resolved in a way that will keep integrity, but allow for a great deal of innovation.

Human Resources committee  Yes, there is, and it's actually outlined fairly well in the G-7 report that was done for Canada.

Human Resources committee  I'm happy to provide it to the committee.

Human Resources committee  Well, I'm glad there wasn't much talk about it. I testified last year on social impact bonds before another parliamentary committee. There's just so much primary work that needs to be done to lay a strong foundation, and I agree here with the testimony of my other colleagues. Before picking up social impact bonds as a really useful tool, you need to recognize that they essentially attract a lot of consultants and a lot of brain damage without your having a foundation on which to be able to judge them and set up a robust social finance environment in which they'd be successful.

Human Resources committee  There would be a lot, but I would mention two. With the CRA there has been a real sort of hardline distinction between charitable status and engagement with private capital, which again is understandable in terms of understanding the purpose of philanthropy, but it is not particularly useful when you're trying to create partnerships between private capital and philanthropic goals.

Human Resources committee  I'll give you my best on that. As much as I'd like to think of my comments as being definitive, they rarely are. The gap comes largely, I think, from a failure sometimes of financial institutions and capital markets to understand risk in relation to community-based organizations and how to understand it and quantify it.

Human Resources committee  Welcome from foggy Vancouver. Mr. Chairman and committee members, I'd like to thank you for this opportunity to appear before the committee to discuss the use of private and institutional financing as part of a strategy to improve social outcomes and strengthen communities in Canada.