Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  We do have access, but I would say our success rate in being able to access those funds is less than 1%. There is difficulty in understanding our model and our membership model, and we have not been very successful in being able to access those funds. We do have a couple of app

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  That's a very good question. For example, the last large capital investment we borrowed for was for building a new dryer in Guelph, Ontario. When no one else wanted to build it, the co-op stood forward and filled the need. That's my political announcement. It was very difficult

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  I think it's one of the greatest opportunities for the cooperative sector to make better hay of the actual success of our model. I came from the multinational petrochemical industry 13 years ago. Today I am a cooperative evangelist, because I have seen the light. I have seen how

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  I believe there's certainly very much a need within Canada for the development of cooperatives to fill the needs within communities. Health care was mentioned, but I also see it, for example, in funeral cooperatives. I'm helping the Somalian community right now to develop a funer

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Certainly Gay Lea is a big supporter of the program. Again, we didn't utilize it ourselves because we're kind of in that middle tier. I saw great success with it in the model, both at the local Ontario level and at the federal level as well. I think the program is an important

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Gay Lea owns all of its own processing facilities. We take the milk from DFO and we process it through our six facilities.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Correct.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Certainly there is a financial gain. You get a gain, obviously, with the milk—

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  That's for all members. I'm a member as well, and I get a dividend on the shares I own. It's a different dividend because I'm not a farmer. But certainly they do get an opportunity to get information from the sector. Because the cooperative sector has transparency, they are inv

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  In a word, no. We provide training for our farmers as they develop succession plans, but it's primarily from father to daughter or from father to son or from grandfather to granddaughter. We provide training for that. But the DFO, the Dairy Farmers of Ontario, regulates how milk

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  DFO does have a program they've implemented that's a young farmers program.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Oh boy, that's a whole discussion on the whole supply management system. Based upon the current pricing models for domestic milk prices, it's not going to benefit dairy cooperatives in Canada at this point, because there aren't a lot of markets being opened up for dairy exports.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Certainly 99 and 44/100ths per cent is sold within Canada, yes.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Well, we are actually a major yogourt producer today, but we co-pack it. The phenomenon of Greek yogourt—and it's public knowledge that Greek yogourt made by Danone is all made at my plant in Toronto. We invested considerable dollars of our members' money in order to diversify. W

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Right. That capital came directly from our members.