CCEDNet Submits Recommendations for the 2021 Federal Budget – Again!

February 19, 2021

Canada's ParliamentThe Canadian CED Network’s Policy Council submitted a response to the Minister of Finance’s invitation for pre-budget submissions for the 2021-22 federal budget. 

Last August, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance called for submissions that addressed restarting the Canadian economy as it recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic.  At that time, CCEDNet made a submission.

Unusually, this year, the Minister of Finance asked for pre-budget submissions again, to hear Canadians’ very best ideas on how to create new jobs and build a greener, more competitive, more innovative, more inclusive, more resilient Canada.  Again, CCEDNet made a submission, which is very similar to the one from August, but with a different pre-amble and framing.

Read the full pre-budget submission

If you also submitted a brief we’d love to hear about it…
Please send your pre-budget submission to Ben Losman at b.losman at ccednet-rcdec.ca.

Our Recommendations for the 2021-22 Federal Budget

1. Accelerate Social Innovation and Social Finance
       a.  Implement a Social Innovation and Social Finance Strategy including all 12 recommendations of the Co-Creation Steering Group.
b.  Ensure equity seeking groups play a leading role in the implementation and subsequent evolution of the SI/SF strategy to build on existing local capacity and strengthen the expertise of the community economic development, non-profit, and co-operative sectors.
2. Support Resilient Local Enterprises
a.  Promote local and social procurement policies.
b.  Enable employee and community-based ownership succession and buyouts.
c.  Establish a national program to grow community investment funds in each province.
3. Build Economies for All
a.  Advance the decent work agenda to support good quality jobs and workers’ rights and well-being.
b.  Improve the efficacy of Labour Market and Workforce Development dollars to reach vulnerable groups seeking workplace skills and training, and ensure that an increased percentage of LMTA funding is directed at vulnerable groups.
c.  Accelerate the timeline of the Universal Broadband Fund, and use it to encourage community-owned broadband.

Read the full pre-budget submission