Policy Development

But What Does An Enabling Environment Look Like?

For the participating organizations of the BCSER, an enabling environment has the following key characteristics:

• Appropriate mix of resources is available – not only access to financing and funding instruments, but also intellectual, informational and operational resources;
• Practitioners and stakeholders are connected and informed;
• Strong capital and consumer markets exist;
• Risk taking is possible;
• Regulatory policies exist that enable the development and growth of social economy enterprises and their ability to compete equally in the marketplace;
• Opportunities exist for all parts of the market (public, private and social) to engage in dialogue; and
• Appropriate measures are in place to track impacts, growth and successes.

 

BCSER Provides Feedback on Government Procurement

9 October, 2007 (VANCOUVER, BC) – Today representatives of the BC Social Economy Roundtable participated in a dialogue session organized by the Ministry of Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC) through their Office of Small and Medium Enterprises – Pacific Region. The meeting provided the opportunity for representatives and leaders from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) of a variety of industries in BC and Yukon to provide feedback on SME government procurement issues directly to PWGSC Minister Michael Fortier and Parliamentary Secretary James Moore.

Justin Ho, Secretariat of the Roundtable and David LePage, Manager of the Enterprising Non-Profits Program (a participating organization of the Roundtable) attended the session. The principle recommendation to PWGSC was to expand the valuation criteria and scope of purpose of the Government of Canada’s return on investment, leveraging the influence and impact of government purchasing and procurement to attain the required financial results, but also positive environmental, social and cultural impact.

Increased social enterprise and social economy participation in PWGSC procurement is one way of attaining more blended return on investments. Specific recommendations made were the:

1. Unbundling of contracts
2. Expansion on existing models of inclusive procurement policies
3. Creation of bidding credits for social enterprise contracting
4. Identification of opportunities for targeted contracting

Click here or on the image to download the full briefing note.

 

A Summary of Issues

In January 2007, the BC Social Economy Roundtable (BCSER) prepared a summary of the key policy and legislative issues facing the social economy in BC.  Charting the Right Course summarizes what the key issues are and also provides a concise description of the various policy initiatives and recommendations that are being developed by many key BC social economy stakeholders.

 

 

 

Links to Other Policy Work

Although by no means comprehensive, here are links to some policy initiatives and reports of note (this list will continually be added to and updated):

• Article advocating for community investment tax credits - The Caledone Institute of Social Policy
• Social enterprise as a separate business structure - The Fraser Valley Centre for Social Enterprise
• A US perspective on a separate business structure for social enterprise - The Aspen Institute
• Issues paper on the social economy - The Canadian Community Economic Develoment Network

How To Stay Informed

The BCSER regularly prepares and release policy briefing notes and will post them on this section of the website.  Also, the Roundtable is committed to keeping people connected to other policy work it is connected with or informed of.  To stay connected, check back often to this page (or the What’s New section) for policy postings, or email us to get on our distribution list.