Evidence of meeting #7 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 credit.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
I'd be interested in hearing about the minority language communities as well.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Finally, I want to thank the UFA for your very specific recommendations. I think, or hope, those will be very useful. We'll have to debate them.
I want to thank you, Mr. Nelson, for the book. This is the centennial book, and I've just got to the chapter about 1921, when the UFA became the government, and I'm looking for nuggets of information that might prove useful for 2015, I'm thinking.
Bob Nelson President and Chief Executive Officer, United Farmers of Alberta
I certainly have no aspirations.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
If any of them do prove useful in providing the results that I'm hoping for, I'll only give you credit if you want.
Sorry, I just couldn't resist saying that.
One thing that has not been mentioned very often—I think I brought it up once or twice—is the federal government's program for executive interchange or exchange. You have people in the higher echelons of private sector corporations exchanging positions with public servants, and vice-versa, with senior managers in the public service going to work in the private sector.
Would the UFA have ever participated in that program?
President and Chief Executive Officer, United Farmers of Alberta
To my knowledge, we have not participated in it. In fact, my experience with UFA has been for about eight years, and we certainly haven't done so in that timeframe. I wasn't aware of the program, nor was I in my past life at a publicly traded organization.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Might I invite you to look at that—and perhaps we could as a committee include that in our report—because I think it might be a way of bridging the chasm between...or the apparent lack of understanding in the federal public service about co-ops.
President and Chief Executive Officer, United Farmers of Alberta
We'd very much like to participate, yes.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Blake Richards
Thank you very much.
We'll now move to our second round of questioning, and we have Mr. Boughen first.
You have five minutes.
Conservative
Ray Boughen Conservative Palliser, SK
Thank you, Chair, and thanks to the panel for appearing this afternoon and sharing your thoughts with us.
You heard from the Chair that we have five minutes. You each had 10 minutes. That gives you 30 minutes. I now have 5 minutes to work out some questions, so—
Conservative
Ray Boughen Conservative Palliser, SK
You'll pardon me if I cut you off and try to move on.
Bill, you talked about start-up funds, the idea being to get credit unions or co-ops up and running. What are you thinking about in terms of dollars? Are you thinking in terms of x number of dollars, a percentage of the start-up? Are you thinking of whether it should be a grant, or should it be a loan to be repaid to the feds? What are your thoughts on that?
Director, United Farmers of Alberta
I should come clean that I'm actually the vice-president of the Canadian Co-operative Association, as well, so I don't....
In my remarks, I said that we're not here to talk about the CDI. I understand the theory that these programs come to a conclusion and that it's time to assess whether it's a good idea to start a new one.
In terms of money, I don't think we really would be asking for the type of funds that would capitalize a cooperative. That's not the issue. The issue is that when you start a business, and someone mentioned this, maybe a cooperative is even more difficult to understand. First, you have to have the entrepreneurial spirit of someone to actually lead the cooperative. Quite often, those people, if they have that ability, go and have their own businesses somewhere else.
You need some money at the beginning, and I think that's where we can play a role. Your question was bang on. When we're talking about mentorship, whether it's business as business or personal mentorship, we could play that role.
We can put some money into capitalization. The kind of money CDI, realistically.... It's a lot of money, sure, anytime you're talking about $1 million. But overall, it's just seed money to give people that little boost to get started.
I don't know whether to say that those kinds of dollars are small or large. But it takes some money. I think some of those grants were $75,000, or maybe they were loans, or whatever. They're small numbers that give people at least a little bit of a start. So many of these cooperatives that try to begin, by the time they get the business plan and get their structure in place and then raise all the capital, they're burned out. It's not just about money. It's about a program that cooperates. If we can come up with something together that's better than CDI, I'd certainly be in favour of that.
Conservative
Ray Boughen Conservative Palliser, SK
Okay, thank you, Bill.
Turning to Hazel and Peter, you talk about putting together a new organization. An organization already exists in the trades; it's the unions. How do you see the blend of your operation and the idea of a co-op interfacing with the existing unions in the various trades and occupations?
Executive Director, Canadian Worker Co-operative Federation
Are you talking about starting up a new cooperative?
Executive Director, Canadian Worker Co-operative Federation
Okay. Well, I would say just a couple of things. The vast majority of the worker co-ops in Canada are not unionized. But where there's a conversion to an existing entity, most of the time, whatever it was before, it is later. So if it was a unionized entity before, typically it stays unionized, though every now and then either the union or the co-op says, “we don't need you”, and they part ways.
In any case, that's sort of the quick answer to your question. Is that enough?
Conservative
Ray Boughen Conservative Palliser, SK
That's fine.
Vera, we were talking about a new complex in Brandon of 34 units. Are you looking at that as a co-op housing project? Can you help us understand where that is starting from?
Executive Director, Manitoba Cooperative Association
It is a non-profit cooperative housing project primarily being financed with help from the Province of Manitoba.
I'm not up on all the details, because it is a bit of a moving target. But I believe that there is going to be a portion of mixed equity. Some will be equity units and some will be non-equity, to have the mixed income. So a variety of seniors could benefit from those units.
Conservative
Ray Boughen Conservative Palliser, SK
Okay, thank you.
How are we doing, Chair? I have 25 seconds left. There's time to reconquer the earth or something.
Bill, maybe you can tell us again what you think is reasonable. Is a percentage reasonable, or is a number reasonable? I know that I'm kind of putting you on the spot, and I knew of your involvement with CDI before we started. I have to level with you.
Director, United Farmers of Alberta
I don't really have a number. I think the number of $4 million or something a year to me is a very reasonable number. In reality, I don't know whether it's going to break the budget one way or the other.
I'm putting it back down to the project rather than the overall number that would be required from the government. I think for a project, it needs to be enough money to help them get started with their seed money. If it's $20,000, $25,000, $50,000 or whatever, I think those are reasonable numbers. It's about as small as you can get and still get that start.
We could certainly forward a recommendation, but I don't think that was the purpose of being here talking about CDI. It would be a CDI-like program. Something along those lines would be what I would see.