Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
Mr. Richard, I had the pleasure of attending the official opening of one of your cooperatives in Notre-Dame-de-Montauban, a village northeast of Shawinigan. I was with some fellow committee members. The village was about to lose its grocery store, its gas station and its hardware store. Now, they have a coop with a grocery store, a hardware store and even a Desjardins bank machine. They also have a gas station. Ultimately, the municipality brought the public library into the fold. Everyone is glad, and if I understand correctly, more than 80% of the families there have joined the coop. That's an incredible example of a project that delivers community services. I saw it with my own eyes.
That brings me to the other point that you mentioned, the Internet. To get to the village, I used the map on my iPad, but my service cut out on the way there. That's when I realized what life was like for residents in the area. What is La Coop fédérée doing, aside from the $30-million injection you talked about, to ensure local service and create a new business? I saw similar situations in Alberta and other rural areas. Is there truly a future in the movement for a new crop of cooperatives?