Special Committee on Cooperatives Committee on July 25th, 2012

Evidence of meeting #5 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 video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

Status of Cooperatives in Canada

Committee Business

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Brigitte Gagné Executive Director, Conseil canadien de la coopération et de la mutualité

Réjean Laflamme Assistant General Manager , President, Federation of Funeral Cooperatives of Québec, Conseil canadien de la coopération et de la mutualité

Kip Adams Director, Education and Outreach, Quality Deer Management Association

Bernard Brun Director, Government Relations, Desjardins Group

William Ravensbergen Chairman, Board of Directors, Ag Energy Co-operative Ltd.

Rose Marie Gage Chief Executive Officer, Ag Energy Co-operative Ltd.

Denis Richard President, La Coop fédérée

Jean-François Harel General Secretary, La Coop fédérée

Hélène Simard Chief Executive Officer, Conseil québécois de la coopération et de la mutualité

John Lahey President and Chief Executive Officer, Alterna Savings

Alan Diggins President and General Manager, Excellence in Manufacturing Consortium

Lorraine Bédard Corporate Secretary, Vice-President, Members Relations, Agropur cooperative

Francine Ferland President, Fédération des coopératives de développement régional du Québec

Serge Riendeau President, Board of Directors, Agropur cooperative

5 p.m.

President, Board of Directors, Agropur cooperative

Serge Riendeau

To summarize all this, there are different types of cooperatives. In our case, the cooperative pays its members for their work, namely, the processing of milk that comes from farms and is delivered to the cooperative.

When the cooperative has served all its customers, it shares the surplus earnings based on the work done on the farm and the volume of milk produced. An investor-owned business will remunerate the capital. Regardless of the industry, whether you are a financier or an investor, the company will pay back the capital that you invested in it. That is an important difference.

What is more, our cooperative's board of directors is made up of 15 members. In order to be a member of the board, a person must be a dairy farmer who is a member of the cooperative. This ensures that the members are able to control the fate of the cooperative based on their needs, namely the processing of their milk, in order to obtain capital gain.

5 p.m.

Conservative

Brad Butt Conservative Mississauga—Streetsville, ON

Merci.

5 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Blake Richards

Thank you. That concludes this panel.

and this meeting.

I would like to thank the witnesses for participating in this afternoon's debate.

I've seen no indication of there being any other business, so I don't think we need to move to committee business this afternoon.

Therefore, I will call the meeting adjourned.