Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  I think if you are really interested in the role the provinces could be playing to support the cooperative sector, you should look at Nova Scotia as a model. I think we have a really interesting relationship with the province. We don't have any particular special programs or spec

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  The answer is really very simple. If you look at the cooperative sector across the country, and again even if you look at it on a provincial and territorial basis, we are first and foremost a business economic sector. That's our focus. And it's the business economic part of who w

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Sure. Again, it's a good question. Just to make it clear, again, we're not talking exclusively about ACOA, because there are many other federal programs and federal agencies. Farm Credit Canada is another good example in Atlantic Canada. We do need to ramp up the awareness an

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Unfortunately, it's not a health card provider situation, because in Nova Scotia, MSI is the billable engine. By the way, we provide billing services for MSI for 1,600 doctors in Nova Scotia. They are inside of our clinic also, on the billing side of things. These are uninsured

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  The patient either pays.... It's kind of like—

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  It's kind of like having a membership at Costco. You can have a subscription in our clinic and have this menu of services, including an e-consult connection to your doctor. You can pay a nominal monthly fee to do that, or cooperatives and credit unions bulk purchase those service

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Sure. I'm very happy to respond to that. When is a good time for government to end programs? I'll tell you when is not a good time for government to end programs, and that is during an economically challenging time. I wouldn't say it's an economic crisis. But an economically cha

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Absolutely.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  As in all government programs, programs start, and they start for particular reasons. Whether they're economic reasons or social reasons or political reasons, they start, and then they end. But in this particular case, what I think would have been helpful and appropriate would ha

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Yes, we do, but regrettably not nearly as good as those of Quebec. We have, as I indicated earlier, a very strong, positive, productive relationship with the Province of Nova Scotia. The loan programs I referred to—small-business high-risk financing programs, the social enterpri

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Absolutely. That's our goal; that's our intent. That's our business plan. It's to replicate first across Atlantic Canada with our cooperative and credit union partners, then to replicate nationally. We're already working with The Co-operators, as a matter of fact, on a pilot init

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  It's a trend more on the credit union side, where financial institutions are coming together for economies of scale. We see it more on that side than on other sides, whether it's agriculture or manufacturing or tourism or transportation, those kinds of things. Those are still fai

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Certainly our larger cooperatives would benefit and would be in the loop of what the programs and the changes are. There are, however—not this particular example—some programs that exist for which, when cooperatives actually apply, it comes as a surprise to the federal public s

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  We don't have special rules that we follow because we're cooperatives.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  That is the message.