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Thank you, Minister, for being here, and thanks to your officials.

One of the things that I want to talk about is the universal child care benefit. When I was younger, there was a baby bonus, and I always remember my mother putting that away into savings for my post-secondary education and that of my siblings. I was just wondering, if parents had the substance that they didn't need to use that money right away and they decided to put it away, whether they could save that $1,920 for six years and then put it in a registered education savings plan. That's bumped up by 20% by the Government of Canada, and with a 5% return, you're getting about $2,400 a year multiplied by six, and then you get into the $720 a year with the same.... We're up to about $25,000, and there are no strings attached. That can be done if the parents can afford to put that away.

Do you foresee that this is going to actually influence the number of student loans that are really needed? We're going to see this money that's going to be available to parents to put away for their children's future education.

We could have almost called that a universal child care benefit savings plan.

What is the cost of that? There is going to be a number of children whose parents are going to receive this, and there's going to be an increase in cost, but overall, what is the cost? Can you extrapolate that with regard to, you know, when you give somebody a cheque, most often they spend it, and then they pay GST and they put money into the economy, and the money comes back. Is there a forecast about the real cost to taxpayers?

That's a lot cheaper than a universal child care institutionalized type of program where it could be up to $15 billion by having—

It only benefits—

This is more of a direct benefit.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a quick question. I noticed with regard to the loan default for student loans, it says that the department will review policies and legislation to reduce student loan defaults and increase recoveries for loans. Is that an ongoing thing, because that was one of the things that was actually printed regarding loan defaults on student loans in the National Post. My son read it and he kind of ragged on me a little bit because he paid his way through, while you're letting people get student loans and then they're not repaying them.

I'm wondering. I know it's only 13%, but still, is there anything you have in the works to try to get better accountability from those students who get loans?

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

The issues around social services are quite broad, so I want to focus some of my thoughts, because I don't know if social finance fits all of the services that are provided.

One case, for instance, is the fact that the Government of Canada transfers moneys for youth skills training. That was not working well. The outcomes were not good and so, of course, we came out with our Canada skills funding and partnered with business, partnered with the provinces, and partnered, of course, with the federal government so we could have those outcomes.

I think one of the challenges we have in Canada is that we're such a large country. The regions are all different and the needs are different. It makes it difficult to really have a program that fits every province or every region. In saying all of this, I really agree with what Dean Mulvale said about making sure that we do have the outcomes, that the goals are met, and are met in a timely fashion.

Then there was an interesting thought from Lars that was a value-for-money lens, and I just thought right away, whose lens are you looking through? That's the challenge: what lens do we look through to evaluate value for money? Are we having successes in the programs that we are moving forward on? I'd like to ask how you see that framework and how we could provide a good way of evaluating the programs. As I say, there are some programs you just cannot include. They're ongoing. But I think taxpayers definitely need to see value for money and see outcomes.

Maybe I could turn that over to Madam Guy to give us some thoughts about that.

Mr. Boggild.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

It's interesting that today I had a delegation representing national charities in my office talking about our government's initiatives and policies as far as charities are concerned and trying to encourage them and make their job easier to raise funds, and to do their good work, and they did commend the Department of Finance and CRA for the great work you've done together with the group. So thank you for that.

The chair was quite right that politicians are going to look at the value of social finance. You are here to tell us how the framework will work in order to make it happen, and also to be able to regulate it to a certain extent. One of the things that the framework has to do is to talk a little bit about best practices, and the tax framework, and financial policy.

I would like to direct my first question to Mr. Jovanovic.

In business you have two types of income. You have active and passive income, and you're taxed at a different rate for those. Is there any possibility of having something like that for a social initiative even in a small business or a large business where you could look at the social impact and have a different level of taxation so that you wouldn't have, like you say, charities competing against businesses? A business could take advantage of it too if they wanted to hire disabled people and there was a certain way that we could evaluate that social value and it could be reflected on their income and how it's taxed.

I just throw that out there, because for me I'm having some challenge in looking at the value of social finance with regard to maybe replacing some of the services provided by government, and then there's the private sector. I'd like to see an opportunity for the private sector to take advantage of what I call social finance in what they do. This could be as partners. Could you share a little bit on whether or not that would be something that could even entertained?

I'll move away from charities. I'll give you an example.

We had a witness here when we first started this study who mentioned that there was a family foundation in Quebec that gives capital out to new businesses that want to start and they discount the interest, their ROI, if there's a percentage of the people who they hire with disabilities. I think that is a great initiative for a small business, or even a large business, that they are going to benefit by having a social conscience and hiring people with disabilities.

Is there any way we could even incorporate that in our finance or the things that we do? That's where I'm going, to that type of thing, because as I say, I just think that in Canada we don't do enough to encourage trying to help people with disabilities and work them into the workforce. I think there could be policy forwarded by the government that would assist businesses and encourage them. I had that experience myself. We had a program. We had a person with Down's syndrome work for us stocking shelves in our grocery store. It made a big difference in how our customers and our employees, as they saw that person working in our store, looked at me as the owner. The program was only for a certain length of time and then it was gone. The manager discontinued it, and everybody was disappointed, including myself. The thing is if there was some sort of initiative so that you go into that program and then you can carry on, I think it would be great and it would be an opportunity for what I call social finance. It's a government acting in a way of social finance to help a business incorporate that.

Maybe you could comment on any of those. Is there any possibility maybe in finance that you could discuss the opportunity that would present?

Mr. Chair, this will be the last question for the government side.

Is there a board or a spokesperson from the various charitable groups across Canada to help you? For example, do they discuss with you policies they are interested in? Does anyone provide input to your department, give you feedback so you know some of their challenges? Is that established and ongoing?

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

No, I'm fine.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

One of the questions I have, though, is this. You mentioned a number of services that are in the same complex that you're in. The provincial government provides social services. How do you ensure you don't have a duplication of services? The federal government is making transfer payments to the provinces to provide social services, and then there is another charitable organization providing the same service. I just wondered if there is any duplication in the services you're providing. And all your leaseholders, are they independent or are they also funded by government agencies—provincial, municipal or whatever?