Special Committee on Cooperatives Committee on July 26th, 2012

[Margie Parikh]

In fact Ottawa is undergoing renovation at the moment, and if you come into the store as our renovation wraps up you will see examples of that. We just opened a few weeks ago a new store in North Vancouver. It's beautiful. It's in an area where we've rehabilitated the land coming off a stream.

Yes, we employ, for example, green energy practices with our building materials. We have parking for electric cars. It involves the proper use of sunlight and grey water, and all those sorts of things. They are leading practices. Obviously, when we're building new, it's state of the art, and when we're renovating as well. In our existing structures we do what we can and actually make significant investments in doing that.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Hastie, you mentioned that you really don't have citizen participation with respect to electronics end of life. Are you from Ontario?

[Neil Hastie]

No, I'm from British Columbia.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Okay. In Ontario, for example, we have a recycling fee that was enacted back when they introduced the HST, on the same day, as a matter of fact. They thought consumers wouldn't notice, I guess. We are active in participating in end-of-use, because $25 for TVs, $11 for computer monitors....

We have over $71 million in excess, surplus, just sitting in an account not being used, and 100,000 tonnes of old equipment that needs to be recycled. Can your organization use these types of funds in some way?

[Neil Hastie]

We operate exclusively in British Columbia. I think you're describing the Ontario circumstance. I don't have a lot to offer in terms of the prescription for Ontario. The electronics program in British Columbia does have some of the same features, however. If you go into a big-box retail store in British Columbia to buy a new flat-screen television, you're going to pay a fee there too. They are similar in that respect.

You started off talking about citizen engagement. We do have it, clearly. We don't have enough of it. I know that because I know how much material we're still sending to landfills. This is material that originates and is in the hands of the consumer. It's the consumer who makes the choice, either through lack of understanding or laziness, or in some cases it's very difficult, if you happen to live in certain kinds of dwelling types, to store things for recycling. But it's the consumer who's making the choice to send that material to landfill. That's what I mean when I say we want to find a method, and this could be one of those openings to find a method to engage citizens more completely. All of us do recycle now to a certain extent, and we're all part of the recycling community, but we're not formally acknowledged within the recycling community because there isn't any way to do that. You're a citizen, you're a taxpayer—

[The Chair, Conservative, Blake Richards]

I'm sorry to interrupt, Mr. Hastie, but we're well over time. I'll give you five or ten seconds to wrap up very briefly if—

[Neil Hastie]

I think I just wrapped up.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blake Richards]

All right, thank you.

We'll move now to Mr. Bélanger. You have five minutes.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Just five?

[The Chair, Conservative, Blake Richards]

Just five. I'm going to try to hold you to that.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

I have four things, and I'm going to try to do them in five minutes.

First to you, Mr. Chairman, there's an item I'd like to discuss tonight after the next session, on business. I'm quite happy to do it public. It's concerning the report. I have a few questions I think the committee may be interested in.

Second, Encorp, you said you were an orphan. Well I believe you have siblings and you may not be aware of them. There is an outfit called the Old Town Glassworks in Yellowknife, and all they do is recycle glass, bottles essentially. They do some very nice material. So you might want to get in touch with them. It's not in B.C., but it's still part of the same country.

Mr. McBain, I have one quick question. There were modifications in the 2011 budget to RSPs and what could be invested from them into co-ops, for instance, with a 10% limit that any such investment could represent in terms of the overall assets of that co-op. So for a small co-op that's become a real problem. Have members of your federation experienced that?

[John McBain]

No we haven't had anybody with any investments from any RSPs or anything like that.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Is there a reason why? You may want to look into that.

[John McBain]

Yes. I think because that's fairly recent it maybe hasn't trickled down to all of our member plants yet. It might be one of the reasons.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

You may want to take a look at that and express your views, if you have any, because that's how things get modified eventually.

On MEC, I think you're about as close to organizational sainthood as it's possible to be. At least that's what it sounds like, and I'm not even going to go there. I want to go to the evolution of co-ops. You have 3.5 million members. How many of them are not Canadian?

[Shona McGlashan]

I do have that figure for you, if you will hold on one second. I don't know how many are not Canadian, but we have about 130,000 members located in the U.S., and about 277,000 located outside Canada.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

So 300,000 or 400,000 outside of Canada. At what point does that become a problem, or does it ever become a problem in terms of governance, in terms of applicable laws? What happens the day that you have a majority of your members who are outside of the jurisdiction in which you have been created?

[Shona McGlashan]

That's an interesting question, and I'm afraid not one I know the answer to. So far it has not been a problem.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Will you be attending the Quebec summit?

[Shona McGlashan]

Yes, I will.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Maybe we can ask that question there.

[Shona McGlashan]

Absolutely.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

All right.

You say you get 18,000 new members a month.

[Shona McGlashan]

It's an incredible number, yes.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

How many do you lose on a monthly basis?