I would like to thank you especially for this question. This is an extremely important issue that has not received enough attention. There are historical reasons explaining why cooperatives fall under Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's mandate. There are very large co-ops in Canada's agricultural sector. Co-ops have diversified and they've taken on many aspects. It is time to stop reducing cooperatives to the type of services or products that they offer their members, and start thinking of them as corporate structures. They are a distinct type of business, which is profitable, which creates a lot of jobs, and which offers a great deal of stability, because their structure is different from that of the share capital model.
Why should this be Industry Canada's responsibility? Because it's important that the government, when it examines its programs and policies, take into account the co-op structure in order to make programs accessible to them in the same way. It is not a matter of favouring one model to the detriment of the other. It's simply offering the same access. Industry Canada's portfolio is considered to be the best place.
How should this be done? That's another significant issue. To deal appropriately with the issue, Industry Canada should not set up a small entity or a subentity. Instead, it should create a co-op secretariat within the department.