INTERVIEW: Maison de l'innovation sociale’s outgoing executive director talks about the organization’s achievements and where social innovation is heading in Canada

VINOD RAJASEKARAN: This is a conversation I’ve been looking forward to for some time, but maybe we could just start with, for people who are not familiar with Maison de l’innovation sociale, maybe you could just take a minute to give us a sense of the mission and the vision of the organization.

PATRICK DUBE: So [Maison de l’innovation sociale] is an intermediary organization that is dedicated to eliminate or at least reduce significantly the different kinds of obstacles that the social innovators are facing in their social innovation journey. These obstacles can be of different natures — they can be regulatory barriers; they can be the need for skills or specific skills development; they can be leadership capacity that they need to develop; they can be financial barriers. Because there is, for instance, no financial instruments that support a specific kind of initiative. 

Some of these initiatives are quite innovative and sometimes they just fall between two chairs, you know, and they just don’t know what to fund. So, there is a myriad, the whole spectrum of barriers, that these social innovators encounter in their journey. And the goal of the organization is really trying to tackle these issues to better support this emerging ecosystem system of social innovation in Quebec … in relationship with what’s happening outside Quebec in the rest of Canada.

VINOD: If I were to ask you what are you most proud of, what would you say? I mean, there’s so many things that la MIS has accomplished, but if I could ask you your top two things that you’re most proud of, what would those things be?

PATRICK: I have more than two, actually. But the fact that we really define a distinctive value proposition that is really complimentary to the support ecosystem in Quebec is really something that I think we are all very proud of. So the fact that this value proposition is recognized by a wide variety of stakeholders now, we’re proud of that. 

The fact that the programs we’ve been developing are now transferable in other regions also is something we’re proud of. I would say from maybe a broader perspective, social innovation now is a recognized field of practice in the provincial government, in the new strategy for research and innovation in the financial government — and it was not the case before. 

I’m not saying that we are responsible for that, but we worked a lot with of others … in the field to do some advocacy around that and now the government is recognized that this is a strategy for research and innovation, which I think is great.

But you know what I would say that I’m most proud of probably, is that our partners or employees, or in QBs, they all tell us that nothing could have prepared them to work with us and that the organization was quite transformative for them. And honestly, it is transformative for all of us, myself included.

VINOD: Those are very good stories to hear, that’s great. The other side to that coin, I suppose, is that there are things that often don’t work out the way you expect them to. I’m really curious about some of the, the biggest risks that you took as a leader, and perhaps if you’re open to it telling us, you know, two things that didn’t work out the way that the way that you intended.

PATRICK: “We always say is that our posture is to embrace the complexity of these issues. You know? So, we’re not looking for the quick fix. Risk taking is everywhere when you have that posture [and are] actually working with diversity; multiple stakeholders coming with their own vocabulary, their own cosmogony, their own ideology, their own narrative, their own theory of change, diverse interest, but also a common objective, you know? 

VINOD: Social innovation in Canada has gone through its own journeys over the last decade or so, and there have been many things that have characterized that journey. But I’m curious to hear from your perspective, from your vantage point, how would you characterize the state of social innovation ecosystem in Canada?

PATRICK: It’s an emerging ecosystem. Social innovation has been around since humanity has existed, right? But social innovation as a field of practice, meaning developing a set of processes, practices in order to accelerate the emergence of social innovations in a world that is changing rapidly, where we are experiencing long-term crisis, you know, long-emergencies, I think it’s an emerging field of work. 

But I feel that it’s evolving very fast in Canada and in Quebec. It’s also quite vibrant now, I think that Canada and Quebec, you know, have both been recognized as global leaders in the field of social innovation and have made significant strides in recent years in fostering a supported environment for social entrepreneurs, social economy, and also social innovation as a broader field of practice.

We have new government programs at different levels that support that kind of work right now, right? We have an emerging set of networks, not only Social Innovation Canada. We have several networks emerging throughout the country right now that are trying to connect these practitioners of social innovation.

We also have new funding investment strategies and instruments that are coming in this network, in this broader ecosystem. We see some movement in the policy and ULA regulatory space also, where cities begin now to create regulatory sandboxes to allow for social innovation to be better experimented in the public space. 

THIS INTERVIEW HAS BEEN EDITED FOR CLARITY AND LENGTH. WATCH THE WHOLE INTERVIEW HERE.

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