During our good times...probably seven years back, for instance, we had a year that we had profits of $1.3 million. What we did at that time—because of the regulations that exist within P.E.I.—is we paid 9% interest on their shares. If somebody had $10,000 in shares, we paid 9% interest on that.
At the time I think we kept $400,000 or $500,000 within the company and the remainder was divided amongst the fishermen. It was divided up depending on what they sold or what they bought from us. They got a share of it, so each member might have received 1.5% of the remaining money. If that amount of money was, say, $10,000, our members voted that half of that would go out in the form of a cheque, as a dividend to the fishermen, and the other half would go into their shares.
During the good times it's obviously a lot easier for them to keep their money in the co-op. Now that things are tough, they're sort of forced to keep it in there to keep the plant going.