Official Languages committee  This kind of discussion is taking place on the co-operative side of things as well. What is a francophone, anglophone or bilingual co-operative? We decided that, to be described as a francophone co-operative, you have to at least have governance in French within the board of dire

Official Languages committee  Credit unions and co-operatives do not want preferential treatment. We have never asked for special treatment because we are a co-operative or a credit union. We want to be on equal footing with other businesses. In other words, we want to have equal opportunities. There are mea

Official Languages committee  There are institutions like Desjardins or the Credit Union Central of Canada that are a little more advanced in these areas. It would be good to speak to them because they would have more details on this than we do. It would certainly be something to think about.

Official Languages committee  I would like to briefly support what Ms. Kenny is saying. We are not entitled to our piece of the pie. As I said earlier, we do not have a budget. Perhaps we are not directly involved in this discussion, but I would like to support what was said. Even so, we can now see that ther

Official Languages committee  Indeed, it has an impact. I should say that some credit unions have chosen not to engage in tax evasion for ethical reasons. It is important to understand that a credit union generally has a non-shareable reserve. That means that if we sold the credit union tomorrow morning and w

Official Languages committee  I will add something quickly. The caisses populaires and credit unions are leaders in financial literacy. That also includes the caisses in minority settings. In Quebec, we are not in a minority situation, but the co-operative family economics associations provide financial lite

Official Languages committee  I think they clearly do, and we have concrete examples to support that. From Regina to Winnipeg to here in Ottawa, we have housing co-ops created by francophones for francophones so that they are able to live in a French environment. Of course, they are businesses, but, more than

Official Languages committee  Actually, we have bilingual co-operatives operating in both languages, just like we have francophone co-operatives and anglophone ones. Things are not always black and white; they are often grey. Our organization is fully bilingual. Business between francophone and anglophone co

Official Languages committee  As we mentioned in our presentation, a co-operative is formed to meet a common need. Let us take a very concrete example, a theatre co-operative in Calgary. Francophones in Calgary were finding that there were no cultural services in French, or not enough of them, and expressed

Official Languages committee  About 35%. There are 9,000 cooperatives and mutuals in Canada, and about 35% to 40% of them are in Quebec. In addition, two thirds of all new co-operatives created in Canada each year are created in Quebec. Why? It is not so much because Quebeckers are more co-operative than ot

Official Languages committee  Yes, indeed. Previously, there were two co-operative networks in Canada, one francophone and one anglophone. They had existed for goodness knows how long for historical reasons. Basically, francophones made up about 45% of the co-operatives, 60% of the assets, 60% of the jobs and

Official Languages committee  I feel that we are really unique, if only by virtue of the fact that we have a number of areas of activity. As we mentioned earlier, it ranges from insurance to forestry, from culture to a number of other things. We are all together. Co-operatives and mutuals represent about 5% o

Official Languages committee  I won't deny that the consequences were very serious. Francophones outside Quebec used to be able to count on francophone provincial councils in seven provinces. I would say that we got kneecapped, not to put too fine a point on it. Several provinces had to stop offering services

Official Languages committee  The secretariat did follow-up on the cooperative movement as a whole. When needed it could examine the situation of francophones outside Quebec or of anglophones within Quebec. The latest data go back to 2009. The difficulty in having access to data and painting a current picture