Thank you.
We will both be presenting.
It's a privilege for us to be here with other cooperatives as change agents for growth and sustainability of cooperatives and to be representatives of a viable alternative to standard Canadian business models.
My name is William Ravensbergen and I'm the chair of the board of directors for Ag Energy Co-operative Ltd. I've held the position of chair for the last three years and the position of director for an additional three years. P. Ravensbergen & Sons Ltd. is a founding member of Ag Energy, is a user of its services, and has been since its inception in 1988. Therefore I have an intimate knowledge about our governance and the mechanics of the organization, a member's/user's perspective. I have personally invested my time, energy, and funds to ensure that Ag Energy is a successful member-based service organization that deals with solutions that are sustainable for our members and customers.
Ag Energy is an Ontario-based cooperative representing members in Ontario and serves more than 1,000 customers in Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia. We are a services-based cooperative that provides natural gas and electricity solutions to its members and customers.
We were incorporated in Ontario 24 years ago. Our beginnings served as cost-effective procurement of natural gas for greenhouses as a result of energy deregulation, as energy typically is one of the largest input costs for our sector.
Ag Energy is a for-profit cooperative with annual sales in excess of $20 million. Our primary focus is to provide cost-effective energy commodity and investment opportunities to our membership.
We are a lean organization of 10 employees, serving agriculture, agritech, and agrifood. We are expanding our offering to include managed cooperative services for other co-ops. Our board of directors is accountable for our governance and is currently eight directors and two trainees, all of whom are from member organizations or are members. Our board represents entrepreneurs, owners, and member staff with ties to the ag sector.
For our members, we operate on a break-even philosophy so that they may procure their energy at wholesale prices. For our other consumers—that is, non members—we provide competitive solutions. Our focus is the delivery of natural gas solutions of greater than 50,000 metres cubed and 150,000 kilowatts of electricity consumption per year.
We are a member of and actively participate in the Ontario Co-operative Association and depend on policy and support from federal and provincial governments to ensure that co-ops are a supported business alternative.
We expect that government will support its constituents and embrace the cooperative principles to ensure growth and sustainability of the co-op sector as a means of investment, employment, job creation, tax base, etc.
Some of the obstacles we have faced are limited policy reform and education; affordable financing structures or reasonable financial covenants; grant structures or government funding, which sometimes excludes co-ops as a standard; and excessive red tape in dealing with government or support services.
At this point I'd like to pass on the presentation to Rose Marie Gage, the CEO of Ag Energy and the chair of Guelph Energy Co-operative, a co-op established by three founding members, one of which is Ag Energy. The Guelph Energy Co-operative was created to provide green energy solutions in the community of Guelph, Ontario, where Ag Energy is headquartered.
Thank you.