Abstract
Social movements across the world have been spearheading citizen-based economic initiatives for several decades. Social finance is a key component of this growing reality, integrating social, economic, and environmental goals into financial decisions. No longer on the margins, it has drawn the attention of financial analysts, policy-makers, savers, and investors. This new and burgeoning financial market transforms finance into a means to achieve societal goals, all the while generating returns for investors. The “Quebec experience” in social finance is widely known internationally because it is embedded in the socioeconomic landscape of Quebec and is recognized as a significant economic actor. The Quebec social economy and social finance ecosystem is considered a model or a “template” in many regions and countries around the world. This chapter presents a portrait of the social finance landscape in Quebec. It describes the overall ecosystem of support for the social economy and details the numerous social finance instruments, their impact, and their origins, including the role of civil society and of public policy. It outlines how these instruments are part of a collaborative ecosystem, including CAP Finance, a network of social finance organizations. Many lessons have been drawn from the Quebec experience, including the need for a bottom-up approach (for processes of co-construction) and the importance of collaboration in developing an eco-systemic approach with a diversity of tools. These lessons are being shared internationally and the experience of knowledge transfer from Quebec to South Korea is briefly summarized.
This chapter has been adapted from “Strategy for knowlsedge transfer of social finance—Best practices of Quebec and strategy for adaptation to Seoul.” CITIES, 2018.
We wish to thank Ralph Rouzier for his invaluable assistance.
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Notes
- 1.
October Summit Conference on the Economy and Employment. An initial conference, the Conference on the Social and Economic Future of Quebec was held in March, during which the Task Force on the Social Economy was created.
- 2.
More particularly by the CSN, which was founded in 1921 and has more than 300,000 members.
- 3.
The FTQ which was officially founded in 1957 and has more than 600,000 members.
- 4.
A non-refundable tax credit exists both in Quebec and at the federal level for labor-sponsored funds (Fondaction: 20% in Quebec and 15% at the federal level; Fonds de solidarité: 15% for each level of government).
- 5.
Work insertion enterprises offer training opportunities to men and women otherwise unable to access the labor market. In Quebec, the network of “entreprises d’insertion” includes 50 such enterprise members in 14 regions across the province. The mission of the network is to support the social and professional integration of people in vulnerable situations and contribute to the further development of integration enterprises and their unique model.
- 6.
From a sustainable development perspective, Écotech Quebec mobilizes key players in the green economy to create the most favorable conditions for the development and growth of companies, and encourages end-users to increase the deployment of clean technologies.
- 7.
This community bond still exists.
- 8.
Mayor Won-soon Park passed away in the spring of 2020. He was a passionate advocate for the socialeconomy in Seoul and worked closely with social economy actors in Quebec, including the authors of this chapter. He pioneered many initiatives in his own country, South Korea, and internationally.
- 9.
Korea Credit Guarantee Fund Social Economy Enterprises Evaluation Platform can be accessed here: https://www.kodit.co.kr/social/main/main.do (Korean only).
- 10.
Indeed, there are exceptions to how this is being played out. While mostly ad hoc, quickly baked measures to mitigate economic chaos, a new policy framework will surely emerge from this crisis.
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Mendell, M., Neamtan, N. (2021). Social Finance in Quebec: An Ecosystemic Approach to Financial Innovation. In: Walker, T., McGaughey, J., Goubran, S., Wagdy, N. (eds) Innovations in Social Finance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72535-8_3
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