Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  It's a good example. It's a classic example of what we said earlier about almost normalizing this structure, called the co-op structure, within the financial sector. There seems to be such ambiguity about the decision-making process and how decisions are made within co-ops that t

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  I mentioned earlier that within the mission of the Assiniboine Credit Union there are really three key stakeholders that we use to measure our success. That comes down to our members, our employees, and the community that we serve. The way we measure our success as a financial c

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  I think quality education—do you know what I mean?—to us, the lenders in the marketplace, is also important, so we're able to integrate co-ops like any other business enterprise and access forms of financing that would not make it restrictive for them.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  That's a valid question. I think the point with the social housing co-ops, the whole section 95 discussion, is the recognition that these co-ops serve a much bigger purpose than the for-profit enterprises. If one of our members who has a social good, in this case that of social h

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Yes, I think you're right. The fundamentals of financing, of credit decision-making and adjudication, comes down to the three c's of credit: it's the collateral, it's the capacity to repay, and it's the character of the borrower. The challenge that co-ops perhaps may have, which

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Yes, thank you. One thing I didn't mention in my delivery was that within the co-op sector, there are both for-profit and non-profit co-ops. One very important role that the not-for-profit co-ops have besides their economic impact is in their social impact as well. One example

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Yes, I would agree with that argument for sure. The other advantage, if I can say, in terms of the wider co-op development impact, is that many of these housing co-ops probably.... Certainly in Winnipeg the Assiniboine Credit Union has been the first choice for these co-ops to l

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  I have to say that I'm not familiar with our credit union accessing or taking advantage of that. I'm not able to respond.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Again, I'm sorry, but I'm not familiar with the level of our access and utilization of those funds you referenced.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  I can't think of that offhand in terms of federal funding to support our assets or growth. What I can say is that we have had support from the federal government related to specific programs and partnerships that we deliver. For example, the asset building program that I mentione

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Yes, yes.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Yes.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Actually, we have not. One of the things I can say is this: our standard to provide financing for small business really would be to those businesses that have a hard time getting conventional financing. So the financing that we deliver to our small business members quite often wo

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Yes, and I'd like Dale to step in here as well from a more provincial perspective. But what I can say from what we've seen in terms of financing small business, certainly the demand for small business, whether it's home-based or otherwise, has been growing, so we have been having

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  The answer is yes. We continue to use the small business financing program as one of the tools, one of those loan guarantee programs, to be able to provide access to financing. So that program certainly, I would say, has been important, together with the formerly mentioned Wester