Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Yes, I would agree that not every project that comes to the board of directors is necessarily approved in the form that maybe our operational people wanted, and it's because of that reflection back on what do our member-owners expect. It might be they expect less of a return, or

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  I would like to make one point of clarification. Certainly at our retail levels it is one person, one vote. But as you move up to what we call second and third tier cooperatives, which we are, there is a democratic representation on the basis of their purchases from us. So even t

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  --it still brings more minds to the table, exactly. It is very much driven by the community. Co-ops exist to provide benefits to their membership. By benefits, I mean products, goods and services that maybe are not attainable in the community without that cooperative, or at a pri

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Definitely. From our aspect, we have all kinds of competition. Every organization out there is usually competing in one of our business lines. I'll use an example--and again, it's a changing landscape. I'll speak to Red River Co-op, in Winnipeg, Manitoba. They're a fuel coopera

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  I think when organizations look at amalgamation, merger, or even a buy-out, it's always to keep the service in the community only in a different structure. So that's why we can say we're still in 500 communities.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  As you realize, we have many small co-ops in our system. We've certainly encouraged prudent fiscal management in those cooperatives, so we suggest and recommend that. But the fact of the matter is that some are so small that they need to look at other ways of delivering. The land

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  My experience, as I said before, is I got involved with a cooperative because I went to an annual meeting. I was nominated and then elected, and before I knew what had happened I was sitting on the local board of directors. But I say that a little bit tongue in cheek, because in

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Thank you for the question. I guess this started out with a request for expenditure to increase the capacity of the refinery, and that started out as a $1.9 billion project that has now grown to a $2.6 billion project. As we moved forward, we knew that our reserves and the earn

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  I'll make some comments, and then Vic can add to them if he wants. We didn't participate in the funds from CDI. As Vic indicated, we represent the consumer cooperative movement. We feel, from Federated Co-operatives, that we're, as he used the term, “all in” in developing consum

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  It's probably not an area I'm most comfortable talking about, because it's very much on the operation side. From a governance and board of directors aspect, we're very conscious of the regulations around carbon and carbon footprints. It is our policy and our instruction to our o

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  I would say it's the majority. We want to be the first business in each of the communities we operate in. Obviously, for competition you're either one or two in most of those communities, and we try to be number one.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Interestingly, in our model we also wholly own another subsidiary, The Grocery People, which provides goods and services to independents. In many of those communities, Federated Co-operative is supplying the total food input into that community, both at the independent store and

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Correct, yes.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Thank you. Yes, through our HR department we provide leadership training both on the employee side and the democratic side. We like to think of our organization as two distinct groups. We have the operations people, who need to be at the top of the game. We have to have the be

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Sure. From our standpoint, leadership development is one of our challenges going forward. Even as we try to create that leadership development, in many of the areas in which we operate in western Canada high-speed Internet is not available. So we have difficulty training potenti