Evidence of meeting #3 for Special Committee on Cooperatives in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cooperatives.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Executive Director, Canadian Co-operative Association
We did have a meeting with a senior policy advisor.
Executive Director, Canadian Co-operative Association
It was a very positive meeting.
NDP
Ruth Ellen Brosseau NDP Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
How do you see the future of cooperatives, for somebody who wanted to start up and build a cooperative in their community? How do you see that with these cuts?
Executive Director, Canadian Co-operative Association
I think it's going to be a lot more difficult for cooperatives to get the right type of the services they need. It's a very specialized service, working to understanding the provincial acts plus working with the group dynamics of setting up a cooperative, and it takes time. One of the reasons cooperatives succeed is due to all the group development and its being based on the needs of the members. It doesn't happen overnight; it's a very specialized service. I've been doing it all of my life, so I can speak to this quite strongly.
One of the reasons why the co-op development initiative was created was to allow any citizen in Canada to have access to co-op development services, and that's not going to happen anymore. That's the reality: it's not going to happen anymore, so you're going to lose innovation at the grassroots level, because it's just going to be perhaps in certain areas that they may have stronger supports.
The reason the survival rate in Quebec is so strong is that there is and has been a strong partnership with the Government of Quebec. They understand the cooperative model in terms of economic development, so they support it through the CDR model, in terms of providing ongoing technical assistance; they have a whole process of capitalizing cooperatives at different levels, in terms of their capital needs; they support education and governance training for members and boards of directors.
If you take that model and can see it being replicated in different parts of the country, that's a success rate. That's why we have the positive study results that we have. Once you lose all of that infrastructure and specialized service, it's going to be hard.
NDP
Ruth Ellen Brosseau NDP Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
What do you think is going to happen with, as you were saying, all the research that was done? What do you think will happen after these cuts? Will it disappear?
I guess it's hard to say what will happen to all the research.
Executive Director, Canadian Co-operative Association
We certainly want to be able to access that research. Taxpayers paid for it, and there's a lot of information that's really important for us as a sector that we still haven't been able to access. From my understanding, the co-op secretariat did a review of the federal act. We haven't seen it. There were regional consultations across the country that I participated in two years ago. We haven't seen the final report on that—which would be very useful for this committee to have access to as well. These were cross-country regional meetings.
That kind of information is very important. Another piece of information that's very important, which the rural and co-op secretariat has done, is annual statistics on the cooperative system in Canada. We're very concerned about what's going to happen with that kind of process, because it really is important to us.
NDP
Ruth Ellen Brosseau NDP Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
As elected members, we're working in the summer. I think we're all happy to learn about cooperatives and their importance, because they touch our ridings; they touch everybody. So I find it kind of hard to believe that we're on this committee, we're working through the summer.... Are we doing due diligence by missing this international conference? Do you think it's...?
I find it hard to believe that we're doing a report and then we're missing out. We're submitting the report to Parliament without going to meet international key players at this meeting.
Can you comment on that? Do you think it's...?
Executive Director, Canadian Co-operative Association
I think it's really good to be doing this process in the summer. I think it's great to...even though it's a challenge for everybody. I thank everybody around the table for this, because I know how difficult it is. But I think it's a missed opportunity if we do not take advantage of what's happening.
We have the brightest resources in the cooperative sector internationally coming to Quebec to talk about the model, not only in terms of how the model is being utilized but also in terms of some of the challenges within the cooperative sector.
In specific areas, if you take health care cooperatives, Japan has 80% of its health care services provided by health care cooperatives. We need to learn that. We need to know how we can use that model in terms of one of the biggest crisis areas we have right now: health care, right? That's an example; there are various different models across the world that we could basically learn.
So yes, I think it would be a missed opportunity.
Conservative
Conservative
Joe Preston Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
Thank you very much.
Well, I'll go back too to where we were on that. I'm not looking for a missed opportunity; I'm expecting this committee to do its work, as we are here in the summer. We'll continue to talk to all the experts we can find. Ms. Guy and I have spoken a number of times on cooperatives. We'll just continue to do that. We'll put together a great report from this committee in time for that conference.
Anyone who would like to attend certainly can attend. I haven't seen shackles under the desks yet. I think they're all loose and free and able to do it. I think it's important that the government's response could then also come with information gathered from the conference. I think that's pretty important.
You talked about the cooperative and the way it works, with one member, one vote. We have the same thing. That works here at Parliament too.
I want to talk a little bit about the financial institutions.
First of all, I'll apologize at the beginning, Mr. Wrobel. I'm going to compare the Canadian banking association to the credit unions on a service level, and you're not going to win.
Conservative
Joe Preston Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
I learned early in my life as a business entrepreneur, from a great mentor, that the second-best relationship I need to have—excluding the one I have with my wife—is with my lender, my financial institution, as a business person.
There are times when my wife has to have that same relationship, too.
Conservative
Joe Preston Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
It's somewhere in the ranking.
But it's true, and I have found... I mean, I'll toot the horn of credit unions again. My lender at my credit union is also the baseball coach and a member of the service club I'm a member of—those types of things. That's not saying it doesn't happen in the bank business, but thank you very much for pointing out that service is your motto. That's a really great way to go.
One of the documents here says that 19% of lending to small and medium-sized businesses comes through the credit union business. What would the size of credit union be as a percentage of banking in Canada? Is this 19% well above the average?
Vice-President, Policy and Operations, Canadian Bankers Association
I think it's probably somewhere in that range.
Conservative
Vice-President, Policy and Operations, Canadian Bankers Association
Yes. Again, when I'm talking credit unions, I'm including caisses populaires in Quebec—
Conservative
Joe Preston Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
Oh, absolutely caisses populaires.
So they're carrying a heavier load with the small and medium-sized enterprises in the country. Is that an easy thing to say, Mr. Fitzpatrick?
Vice-President, Corporate Services and Chief Financial Officer, Credit Union Central of Canada
Our market share in other lines of business is not as high as it is in supporting the small and medium enterprise sector. So it would be true to say that. Again—
Conservative
Joe Preston Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
Well, that would increase the percentage within your organization while you have a higher percentage of small and medium enterprise loaning, but why would that be the case across the country, then, against all financial institutions? Are you taking more risk?
Vice-President, Corporate Services and Chief Financial Officer, Credit Union Central of Canada
No. The cooperative sector....
I guess it goes back to the roots of where financial cooperatives operate in the local communities. We support local business people in those communities. I've made reference a few times here today to different things that we have done in different communities to support local industries and local economies.
I think because we're in those communities, that contributes to a disproportionate share. We also have a number of institutions, one based here in Ottawa, that do microlending. They support people who have very little to start with. They get loans to start whatever very small business they want to start.
So it's those sorts of initiatives—
Conservative
Joe Preston Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
It's a little non-conventional from time to time, too.
Vice-President, Corporate Services and Chief Financial Officer, Credit Union Central of Canada
Yes.
Conservative
Joe Preston Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
Excellent. That's the strength. It's not about the forms; it's about the person. That tends to work fairly well.
Ms. Guy, you talked about working on your relationship with Industry Canada. I know you've had a few meetings with Industry Canada and you're working towards that too.
In your opening remarks—or in one of your responses to a question—you talked a bit about how sometimes it's about the form. It doesn't fit. The form won't fit cooperatives.
You've had those conversations. Do you feel you're making movement towards change?
