Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Thank you. We absolutely have competition in most of the communities where cooperatives are located across the Arctic. The old Hudson's Bay Company essentially began in the Arctic with trading posts. Part of their operations were spun off to an organization called the North West

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  The types of financial services in the Arctic are very limited. If you consider the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, there are 58 communities, and nine of those communities have financial institutions—all chartered banks. Many people in the Arctic have virtually no experience

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Credit unions are essentially provincially regulated entities. There is no active legislation in the Northwest Territories or Nunavut for credit unions. There is the possibility of developing agency-type services, for example, in a cooperative or some other kind of business. We

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Well, certainly there wasn't at our level. I can't speak for the consultation that took place with the Canadian Co-operative Association. Certainly we felt that the CDI program was offering value or benefits, particularly in the area we serve, which is rural and aboriginal commun

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  First off, there are no credit unions in the north. There are just cooperatives. One of the challenges of the north is the lack of financial services. I certainly don't believe that we have a secret formula. The north is somewhat of a captive market in terms of the shopping and

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Certainly the greatest challenges we face are just our distance, our conditions, the lack of infrastructure in communities, and transportation networks. There are many, many challenges. Some of our other challenges are education levels. Education levels are increasing all the t

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  A good analogy, a good example, is the Inuit art marketing. Many of our member cooperatives began as producer cooperatives marketing the art produced by their owner-members. The cooperative network has been involved in art marketing for more than 50 years, and we have been the co

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  I believe it has been. As I indicated, we are an advisory services partner under the co-op development initiative, and we have been working with groups, and not just in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut but in parts of the northern provinces and the Yukon, in the development

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Yes, we would have.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  I know the cooperative sector has looked at a number of different options in terms of one being a capital pool or co-op development fund. We have first-hand knowledge of the benefits of a pool of capital to develop businesses, particularly in areas that are underserved from a fin

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Yes, I did appear before the aboriginal affairs committee. I thank you for remembering that. The program has rolled out. We believe the program is a success. There have been some growing pains with the new program, but the old program was broken. The efforts of the government to

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Yes, we do. There's an advisory committee that oversees the program. We appeared a couple of months ago before the advisory committee, providing additional input on how the program should operate.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  There was $10.2 million in capital that was provided. There was $5 million in new cash that was provided by Industry Canada under the native economic development program; $4.9 million was the conversion of existing debt from Indian and Northern Affairs Canada from the Eskimo loan

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  It doesn't. The Arctic Co-operative Development Fund is a stand-alone financial arm of the cooperatives of the Northwest Territories.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  It participated when we were incorporated. It is run completely and totally by the cooperatives in the Arctic. It is an extremely successful financial arm—