A research report prepared for the Northern Ontario, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan Regional Node of the Social Economy Suite

This paper proposes future directions to strengthen the public policy environment for the Social Economy as a key agenda to building a more people-centred economy in Canada. It highlights the public policy findings of research by the Canadian Social Economy Hub and Research Partnerships and suggests the significant recent trends in public policy by governments at all levels to invest in the Social Economy as a means to address social, economic and environmental issues.

This paper describes innovative financing and delivery mechanisms for getting long-term unemployed people back into work. Finance can be innovative especially when it comes from non-public sources, when it is not grant based or when it is applied to structure the delivery system in a new way. Certain types of finance might draw on all of these approaches.

Communities in both the US and the UK have tried to come to grips with the problem of local economic development growth; at times the solutions have been surprisingly similar, at times very different. Business-led community economic development programmes promote business interests and try to ensure business growth. Community-based programmes, on the other hand, focus on the need for jobs and adequate incomes for its residents.