The answer is really very simple. If you look at the cooperative sector across the country, and again even if you look at it on a provincial and territorial basis, we are first and foremost a business economic sector. That's our focus. And it's the business economic part of who we are that enables us to do all the rest: the social, the cultural, the environmental. All the other things we do are enabled by the fact that we are a business and an economic sector. So we belong in Industry Canada, and we belong there with the hope that we would have the same treatment, the same opportunities, the same programs, and the same supports that would be available for the traditional private sector economy outside of our industry.
On July 24th, 2012. See this statement in context.