Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to be here today.
I will be speaking today on behalf of Co-operatives and Mutuals Canada, or CMC. CMC is the national body for co-ops and mutuals from across Canada. Our members are located in every province and serve urban and rural communities.
I wish to share with you today a few social financing models that co-ops are using and have been using for some time. As well, I want to highlight why we believe that cooperative businesses are the ideal model to promote and encourage social financing across the country. I also hope to build on what has already been discussed during your study on social financing.
Two financing models that I will be focusing on are social investment funds and pay-for-performance contracts.
Let me begin by saying that we believe that cooperatives have been providing social financing in one way or another since they began operating in Canada over a hundred years ago. The cooperative business model naturally lends itself to this sort of approach on a socially responsible level.
As many of you around the table already know, cooperatives are guided by seven internationally accepted principles that help shape their business decisions and governance, therefore setting them apart from other enterprises.
Out of these principles, the principle of member economic participation, is probably the one most closely related to social finance. People come together to form a co-op to fill a need, and they invest into it. It is not from government support or through donations. This is precisely the difference between not-for-profits and cooperatives. Cooperatives are about mutual self-help, unleashing the power of ownership to enable people to help themselves.
Let me give you an example to demonstrate how these principles help foster an environment that promotes social financing.
Let's begin by looking at social investment funds. Currently, we have several funds operating across the country. These funds are designed to serve a particular geographical region or a particular sector in the co-op movement.