Committee members, thank you for welcoming us this morning and for allowing us to present our recommendations for the next federal budget.
First, I do not necessarily want to read what you have received. I am sure you have done your homework. What I would like to be able to do is to give some context for the importance of cooperatives across Canada, provide you with three recommendations and put the emphasis on major investment to establish a cooperative investment system across Canada.
Canada's francophone cooperatives and mutual associations joined forces in 1946 to create an environment conducive to the development of francophone cooperatives and mutual associations from coast to coast. There are 3,500 cooperatives and 44 mutual associations generating more than $23 billion of sales, representing more than 8,860,000 members in Canada with total assets of over $170 billion, creating more than 100,000 jobs across the country. They also represented $779 million in sponsorships, dividends, grants and donations to Canadian communities in the 2008 fiscal year.
If there's one clear observation that can be made of the cooperative system, it is that it is solid. Recent research conducted by the Government of Quebec in 2008 shows that two cooperatives survive beyond their 10th year, compared to zero in private businesses. In periods of crisis, cooperatives can afford to be more patient than private enterprises.
This morning, our recommendations are designed first to introduce positive action measures in support of the development of francophone cooperatives outside Quebec. As you know, over the past 100 years, cooperatives have enabled these communities to survive financially and to do business in their chosen language on the land where they have chosen to live.
I would also like to recommend the development of a job creation strategy in Canadian communities through a two-part investment in cooperatives.
The most significant challenge facing cooperatives is access to capital. The purpose of these two tools is therefore essentially to capitalize cooperatives, first, by establishing a cooperative development fund that would provide cooperatives with access to non-traditional loans in the form of patient capital provided at preferred rates and, second, by providing cooperative members, producers and workers with access to credit through the creation of a Cooperative Investment Plan, commonly called a CIP.
I would like to remind you that, in 2004, this committee made the following recommendation to the Government of Quebec in its December 2004 report:
[...] it is important that all Canadian businesses—including co-operatives—operate on a level playing field and within a tax regime that enables them to meet their needs in order that they and the Canadian economy can grow and prosper.
The committee recommended that the federal government immediately take the following action: create a Cooperative Investment Plan that would encourage agricultural cooperative members and employees to invest in their agricultural cooperatives.
This morning I am pleased to be here with Mr. Jacques Lucas, from the Coopérative fédérée, who initiated the Cooperative Investment Plan in Québec. I'm going to hand over to him so he can tell you about it.