Finance committee  First of all, I would say that the cooperative sector has some of the leaders in sustainable economic development. Mountain Equipment Co-op, The Co-operators insurance company, Vancity credit union—they're all leaders, not just in the co-op sector, but leaders in Canadian industr

Finance committee  We've just done a study on that, and I would be happy to send it to you.

Finance committee  I want to thank you very much for giving the Canadian Co-operative Association the chance to present to you today. The 9,000 cooperatives and credit unions in Canada have over 18 million members and $376 billion in assets, and they employ over 150,000 people. We are particular

Finance committee  We've just done a study on the co-operative investment plan in Quebec, which is available in French and English on our website. I'd be very happy to send you a copy of it. It is a detailed study. Effectively, that plan produces about $30 million of new investment each year in Q

Finance committee  Yes, certainly. We use these two terms interchangeably. I'll say this in English. The Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada, which is one of our members, has approximately 95,000 co-operative housing units in Canada, and those are geared to middle- and lower-income famili

Finance committee  That's certainly one of our concerns, and we hope this situation will be looked at in the near future, because it certainly is coming to an end.

Finance committee  Thank you very much. I'm going to turn the answer to that question over to my colleague, John Julian, who works specifically on the international development front.

Finance committee  Thank you very much. My name is John Anderson. I'm director of government affairs and public policy for the Canadian Co-operative Association. I have with me John Julian, who is the director for international communications for our organization, as we also do a lot of internation

Agriculture committee  Yes.

Agriculture committee  At the present time, the grading system is confusing. First of all, there is the word “Canada” in it, and it's obligatory to put that on the front of labels of many products. Therefore, it becomes confused with the origin of the product. Many consumers are not educated to disting

Agriculture committee  I think right now it is definitely a source of confusion, but the question is how you fix it. I think there are different ways of doing it, as long as the public is educated as to what those different labels mean. It must be clear to us that a “Product of Canada” label has to mea

Agriculture committee  We have not taken a position on the issue, because some of our members favour a voluntary method, whereas others are more in favour of something formal. I agree with Mr. Dungate that what is most important is ensuring that "Product of Canada" means something very clear. At prese

Agriculture committee  I think we have to separate the “Canada” from the grading. There has to obviously be a grading system. It's very important, but allowing products that are not from Canada to have the “Canada No. 1” label on there.... We propose just “No. 1”. It could be some other form of labelli

Agriculture committee  Yes, definitely. Lynne, did you want to answer that?

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much. My name is John Anderson. I'm the director of government affairs and public policy for the Canadian Co-operative Association. The Canadian Co-operative Association is a national association for cooperatives. We represent more than 9 million cooperative and c