Over the last year leading up to the federal election, CCEDNet’s Policy Council, Board, the People-Centred Economy group, members and staff have been hard at work to prepare election resources, raise awareness of our policy recommendations and advance our priorities with all political parties.
The first step began more than a year ago with an update of our policy priorities. The new document makes the case for community economic development and identifies seven recommendations to support finance and investment, community enterprise and local opportunities.
The People-Centred Economy group, a coalition of leading members and partners originally formed to organize the National Summit on a People-Centred Economy, was also involved in creating a specific set of policy proposals for Canada’s social economy. These eight proposals focus on four areas: growing social economy businesses; stimulating investment; leveraging procurement; and modernizing legislation and regulations.
Over the last nine months especially, we have been reaching out to all parties and meeting with key MPs and officials to discuss our recommendations. Our meetings in Ottawa emphasized the importance of clear and simple messages, which is why we developed a short 2-page call to action for changes spending and investment to support community economies.
We also took the opportunity to update our popular Art of Advocacy booklet with help from charities lawyer Richard Bridge. The new version clearly outlines the rules about political activities by charities and provides handy tips on a range of different advocacy tactics.
Finally, we have collected all of these resources as well as links to election materials from many of our members and partners on our Action for Community Economies page for easy access.
Now it’s Your Turn
Candidates and Canadians need to hear about how community economies are making a difference all across the country. Take action now and show your support:
- share the community economies election materials on social media and in your networks
- send a letter to the candidates in your riding with questions on how they will support community economies
- Vote!
We can vote to support federal policy changes together. Let’s put action for community economies on the agenda of all election candidates this fall.
Michael Toye is the Executive Director of the Canadian CED Network. He has also taught courses on CED and social enterprise at Concordia University and has written a number of articles and other publications on CED and the social economy, including co-editing the book, Community Economic Development: Building for Social Change.
Read Michael’s blogs
