The social economy program was launched in 2004. It enables social economy enterprises, cooperatives as well as non-profit organizations, to acquire capital. At this stage, the focus of our concern is capitalization.
We're proposing that this initiative be reintroduced. In all, there are four social economy agencies located in Quebec, Ontario, Western Canada and Atlantic Canada. The Quebec agency has been around for some time and its positive benefits are well known. However, the three other agencies were lagging behind and we wanted them pick up the pace. But in actual fact, this initiative was stopped. There has been talk of enterprises that make up the new fabric of the social economy and that will help satisfy the needs of the public. There is talk of creating businesses to address community needs. We're proposing that this component be reintroduced so that businesses can acquire capital and grow.
In short, we're asking the government to reintroduce this measure which fundamentally, in our opinion, was not that costly to maintain.