The Canadian CED Network is pleased to announce the Call for Proposals for the 8th intake of its CED Work Experience Program, CreateAction! This program is funded by Human Resource and Skills Development Canada. Its purpose is to give out-of-school post-graduate youth, who have a career focus in community economic development (CED), a relevant six-month work experience placement. We are recruiting up to 40 community-based CED organizations to host work experience participants from October 4 – March 18th, 2010 inclusively.

How does it work?

Organizations submit applications to the Canadian CED Network via this website to host a participant. The Canadian CED Network selects the host organizations. The host organizations in turn hire the participants according to job-specific placements.

Eligible work experience placements may include project management, participatory research, communications, social entrepreneurship, business planning, social marketing, CED financing and asset mapping, to name a few. A special focus for this intake will include placements with positive environmental impacts. For examples of CED work experience placements from last year, click here.

The Canadian CED Network requires host organizations to be members of the Canadian CED Network or become members once its application for hosting work experience participants is approved. For information about being a member, click here.

The Canadian CED Network will select the host organizations according to the following criteria:

• relevance of proposed work experience to community economic development (For the Canadian CED Network’s definition of CED, click here)
• whether the proposed placement qualifies as an environmental work experience (e.g. includes Environmental Protection, Conservation and Preservation of Natural Resources, Environmental Sustainability, etc.);
• organizational capacity to assist participants with their daily work, mentoring and career development;
• provincial/territorial and urban/rural diversity;
• track record in hosting work experience placements, students or interns;
• ability to recruit participants from diverse backgrounds.

The Canadian CED Network will give preference to organizations that can successfully recruit Aboriginal participants as well as persons with disabilities.

The Canadian CED Network will:

• manage the CED Work Experience Program;
• employ the participant at $15.00 an hour for a total of 37.9 hours a week, including participant Mandatory Employment Related Costs or statutory benefits;
• coordinate monthly intern teleconference calls to share experiences and to network
• offer major travel and accommodation for provincially diverse participants to attend the national intern gathering October 21, 2010; and
• provide peer learning and mentoring opportunities to the participants related to the National Youth CED Engagement project.

Host organizations will:

• supervise the work experience participant;
• contribute to the work experience participant’s learning opportunities
• allow the work experience participant to spend approximately one day per week to work on their National Youth CED Engagement project;
• Allow the work experience participant to spend a minimum of three days at the national intern gathering October 20-22, 2010.

Participants must meet the following the criteria:

• between the ages of 15 and 30 inclusively at the time of selection;
• a Canadian citizen, or a permanent resident, or a protected person within the meaning of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act;
• legally entitled to work in Canada;
• legally entitled to work according to the relevant provincial and/or territorial legislation and regulations;
• out-of-school;
• a post-secondary college or university graduate;
• not receiving Employment Insurance benefits;
• can demonstrate a lack of labour market attachment to field of study (under-employed or unemployed);
• can demonstrate that working in the field of community economic development is a career goal;
• has not previously participated in a Career Focus work experience placement.

How to apply?

Deadline for host organizations to submit an application is September 13th, 2010, 5:00pm Pacific Daylight Time. Download the CED Work Experience Host Organization Application Form here.

Youth interested in the program may submit an application to the Canadian CED Network or may apply directly to the host organizations. Download the CED Work Experience Participant Application Form here. The successful host organizations will be announced on this website.

For more information and to submit your application, please contact Matthew Thompson at or phone at 416-760-2578.

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Commentaries have pitted this as an either-or debate regarding protectionism versus free trade, the higher costs associated with preferring local business over cheaper ones and about the ramifications of us doing something that the rest of the world supposedly is not.

To begin with, this debate is not an all-or-nothing conversation. Trade has its benefits, but it also has its flaws. To pretend that “free trade” and “fair tendering” are really free and fair is naive. Free trade has allowed some local companies to expand and hire more Manitobans, while others have been forced to move, close or sell out, resulting in lost jobs.

Extreme measures either way do not make responsible public policy. Our public institutions are mandated to act in society’s best interest, and our best interest is not served by blind adherence to the cheapest bid. This is why tendering policies already consider a host of other criteria. Adding locality to this mix is not in and of itself protectionist; it ensures maximum value for publicly spent dollars.

Some fear that local preference will escalate costs and result in fewer or lower quality service and products. Again, it is not simply one or the other. When weighing competing bids of similar quality and cost, it is possible to add other considerations, such a locality, as tie-breakers.

In looking out for the public good, governments increasingly consider safety, quality as well as life-cycle and ongoing operating and maintenance costs of various tenders in addition to up-front prices. We should also favour businesses that reduce taxpayer costs related to poverty, crime and incarceration, unemployment and health care while increasing government revenues through payroll and income tax revenues and consumption taxes. This is not about charity, this is about efficient use of government funds.

To present this approach as something no one else is doing is also misleading. Integrating economic, social and environmental objectives, also known as a “triple bottom line” approach, is becoming increasingly common and governments and other institutions are getting on board through their procurement policies.

For example, the Vancouver Olympics gave consideration to social enterprises in their procurement process. As a result, social enterprises employing women returning to work, inner-city residents and aboriginal youth working in social enterprises produced the flowers presented to medallists and the podiums that they stood on. The City of Calgary has implemented a sustainable environmental and ethical procurement policy. Ontario’s recently released poverty-reduction strategy includes commitments to developing procurement policies that support social enterprise. New Westminster, B.C., recently adopted a living-wage policy, ensuring that work it contracts out is awarded to companies that adhere to wage and benefit standards greater than what is legally required.

The Scottish government is implementing a policy that gives 10 per cent preference for social enterprises in certain procurement fields, including three per cent for subcontracting to social enterprises. In Great Britain, a Conservative MP has brought forward a bill in support of social enterprise procurement preference. Italy has long given extra weighting to purchasing from co-operative businesses, recognizing that their business model of collective ownership creates economic democracy and a more equitable distribution of wealth.

Our neighbours to the south understand the value of balancing free trade with strategic purchasing. More than 140 municipal governments have passed “living wage” ordinances regarding their procurement contracts, including big cities such as San Francisco, Santa Fe, N.M., Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Boston, Los Angeles and St. Louis. The U.S. government has targets of procuring five per cent of contracts from small female-owned businesses, three per cent from service-disabled, veteran-owned businesses and gives small businesses located in “HUBZones” (historically underutilized business zones located in economically distressed communities) a 10 per cent price evaluation preference on tenders and aim for three per cent of all federal contract dollars to be awarded eligible businesses. In Minnesota, targeted small businesses that are located in economically disadvantaged communities or are owned by racial minorities, women or people with disabilities are given up to 6 per cent pricing preference. The U.S. Army has a green procurement strategy.

Leaders around the world are beginning to understand the ripples of procurement. They are seeing how even incremental cost increases in procurement are dwarfed by the direct financial payback that certain enterprises provide, never mind the longer-term financial savings relating to the costs of poverty and poor health. Municipal governments could catch this wave.

Brendan Reimer is the prairies regional co-ordinator for the Canadian Community Economic Development Network, a national member-led non-profit association of organizations committed to community renewal and poverty reduction.

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/analysis/2010/08/06/buy-local-policies-growing?viewAllComments=y

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The Canadian Community Economic Development Network (CCEDNet) International Committee welcomes you to their Blog so that we can share information with our members, the Canadian public and interested persons around the world. We welcome information, either in English or in French.

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Deadline for applications is July 30, 2010

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The people-centered economy has progressed considerably in Canada in recent years, but the gains are still fragile and challenges substantial. The continued development of a people-centered economy cannot proceed without an overall perspective that draws a link between local, national and planetary, between where something is produced and where it is consumed and between worker and the socially aware investor. A people-centered economy cannot be fully realized without the mobilization of a society as a whole.

Click here to view the full Declaration of the 2010 Summit on a People-Centered Economy.

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Karim Harji est gestionnaire du développement des partenariats de Social Capital Partners (SCP) à Toronto. SCP est un organisme sans but lucratif pancanadien de fi nance sociale. SCP fournit des services-conseils en fi nancement et en stratégie de croissance à des entreprises qui affichent de bons résultats, qui font preuve d’une mission sociale au plan des ressources humaines et qui veillent à élargir les occasions de carrières professionnelles destinées aux populations défavorisées. Karim est également cofondateur du site Web socialfinance.ca et membre du comité des nouveaux leaders du Réseau canadien de DÉC.

L’entreprise sociale : Un modèle alternitif d’affair avec Karim Harji

Lire tout les histoires d’Économie sociale en témoignage

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This month Canadian CED Network is featuring Karim Harji, Manager of Partnership Development at Social Capital Partners (SCP) in Toronto. SCP is a national non-profit that provides growth financing and strategic advice to successful businesses that demonstrate a social mission in their human resources model and are looking to expand career opportunities for disadvantaged populations. Karim is also co-founder of the dynamic website www.socialfinance.ca and a member of the Canadian CED Network’s Emerging Leaders committee.

Click here to read the full story!

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Saskatchewan’s March 24 budget eliminated funding for neighbourhood development organizations. CCEDNet has written to the Premier and Minister of Social Services urging the government to reverse this decision.

Click here for the full text of our letter

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Summit organizers are pleased to announce that the Hon. Michael Ignatieff, Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, will address Summit participants.

Speakers continue to be added to the Summit program as details are confirmed. For all the latest information, check the Summit Program Overview regularly.

The deadline for on-line registrations is May 21st – avoid any last-minute complications and register now!

This is the last week for input on the issue papers and recommendations prior to the Summit. In order to be considered for the documents that will be presented at the Summit, changes must be posted to the Wiki by May 15. Visit the wiki at: people-centredeconomy.wikispot.org.

We hope to see you at the Summit!

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With only a few weeks left before the 2010 National Summit on a People-Centred Economy, momentum is building towards this landmark event. 

In addition to best-selling author Raj Patel, Michael Peck from Mondragon International and Ken Delaney from the United Steelworkers, the list of confirmed speakers now includes David Berge, Senior Vice-President of Community Investment at Vancity Credit Union, Susan Tanner, Executive Director of the Canadian Environmental Network and others. An updated summary of the Summit Program can be found in the Summit Program Overview.  

Register now! The deadline for on-line registrations is May 21st. 

Telelearning sessions on Summit issue papers are now underway. These FREE 1-hour sessionson the Summit themes present leading researchers and practitioner organizations.  For the full schedule of sessions and speakers, see the Summit engagement web page. (www.ccednet-rcdec.ca/en/summit/engagement#telelearning). To register, phone 250-472-4976 or email , with your name, location, and work or volunteer position.  

Did you know you could post suggested comments and changes to the 2010 National Summit issue papers? Please do so by visiting the wiki: people-centredeconomy.wikispot.org. The revised papers will be presented at the National Summit from which a common declaration and action plan will be developed. In order to be included prior to the summit, changes must be posted to the Wiki by May 15.  

If you have not yet made accommodation reservations in Ottawa, do so quickly. The weekend prior to the Summit is Ottawa Race weekend, so finding accommodations may be more difficult than usual. Space is still available at a great price on campus at Carleton University, and on-line bookings can be made until May 17.    Are you interested in having a booth at the Summit Tradeshow, or would you like to be an official Summit sponsor? Check out the Exhibitor and Partnership Brochure or contact Matthew Thompson directly at 416-760-2578, or by email at .  

We hope to see you at the Summit!

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On April 12, 2010, Doug Donaldson, MLA, Stikine, Deputy Finance Critic and active member of the Canadian CED Network, made a private members statement in the legislature on the need for a meaningful Rural BC Strategy and the role Community Economic Development could play in helping support our northern communities with the proper focus. You can view my statement at : Rural B.C. Community Economic Development – D. Donaldson, MLA – April 12, 2010

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