I was not expecting to make a presentation as such, but I will talk to you about initiatives that Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions has implemented, the ones that Nancy mentioned earlier.
In fact, we had planned to put in place three initiatives as of April 2004. One was a capacity-building initiative for organizations in the social economy, for which we had set aside $5 million. If we take out the operating budget for this EDAC initiative, we can say we invested $4.8 million between April 2005 and today.
Our second initiative plan was to establish a capital fund for social economy enterprises in Quebec. We asked social economy stakeholders in Quebec, through a competition process, to suggest innovative ways of implementing investment funds for social economy enterprises. After the competition, a jury panel established for that purpose determined that the Chantier de l'économie sociale had put forward the best proposal.
Since then, we have been negotiating with the Chantier de l'économie sociale and other financial partners, such as the Fonds de solidarité FTQ and Fondaction. The government of Quebec joined us at the last spring budget. These talks are now concluded, and we are very proud of the work accomplished so far.
A third initiative had to be taken into account and implemented—ensuring that social economy enterprises in Quebec had better access to our regular programs. Even though social economy enterprises have had access to our programs since 2004, we thought it would be a good idea to promote the programs. This was a very successful effort. In fact, the contribution we are now making to social economy enterprises is two or even three times what it was in previous years.
That is what we have accomplished so far, and we are quite satisfied. All amounts intended for the capacity-building initiative were committed in the first year. Next winter, we plan to assess the results by looking at the impact on the economy, job creation and other facts.
For example, we provided assistance to the Société de développement Angus,which enabled the revitalization of an entire neighbourhood in eastern Montreal. We have a long-standing partnership with Angus, and are very proud of it.
In addition, the Fédération québécoise des coopératives forestières asked us for assistance in planing and implementing a strategy to help forest cooperatives in Quebec, to give them the tools to meet a number of challenges. That request coincided with the softwood lumber crisis.
Ms. Neamtan mentioned a number of social economy sectors in Quebec. We are proud to say that we have been able to cover almost all those sectors, including community media, environment, manufacturing businesses and adapted businesses that hire disabled people.
We have been able to support many projects.