Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  As a federal crown corporation, ultimately, we have only one shareholder: the Government of Canada.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  I would say they're not disadvantaged. I can't think of how they would be. The large co-ops, of course, are large organizations that have lots of capability, so we set them aside because they can access funds from any financial institution. The medium-sized, independent cooperati

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  We don't. We set a target annually with regard to our lending, to ensure that our front-line force remember to always focus on young farmers, as well as all farmers. For example, last year we set a target of $1.5 billion for young farmers, and we exceeded that target by lending

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  That's right across Canada.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Western Canada has come out of the gate really fast. Atlantic Canada would be the lowest amount because there are fewer farmers in the Atlantic. But from Quebec going west, the numbers are strong in every province.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  We are committed to giving our customers the best products and services that we can. Whenever we are aware that another financial institution is vying for that business, we are very diligent to never undercut the competition on price. We borrow money through the consolidated re

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  I would add quickly that another thing with UFA and some of our crop-input programs, with a cooperative, is that we are taking all the risk. So when we're doing a crop-input loan to a farmer facilitated through UFA, UFA doesn't have to take any of the risk. We'll provide a crop-i

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  In 1959 and into the early 1970s we would have received an appropriation annually. In fact, as we started out, banks didn't offer farm mortgages, so we were the show in town to do farm mortgages. We never turned a profit, though, for that whole period of time. We were kind of liv

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  One of the things that we see with the co-ops, especially some of those smaller co-ops that I mentioned, like the cattle breeder and feeder co-ops for cattle purchases, is that there's no obvious structure on a normal lending program. I mentioned that one co-op with 18 members. W

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Certainly not.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Well, we wouldn't use it literally as collateral, because it's not a security instrument, so to speak, but we would certainly work with our customers on an individual basis to come up with a solution that will work for them. We know that one weather event—for instance, this sum

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Certainly we've had unprecedented levels of lending to young farmers in the year just ended. In fact, last year we lent $1.9 billion to young farmers--that is, persons under the age of 40. And that's a good thing, for the transfer of assets. As the older generation starts to phas

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  One of the things we started ten years ago is what we call FCC learning programs. As we look at the success of our customers, success isn't based only on a good balance sheet; it's based on really good business skills. That's where we really want to support our customers—to incre

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  That's correct. In 2001 we received—

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  In 2001 we received a mandate that we think serves our needs and the needs of our customers very, very well.