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.
Member, Community Health Co-operative Federation Ltd.
All they gain is a little advantage on the cost of pharmaceuticals if they purchase drugs from us.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Blake Richards
Thank you very much.
We'll now move to Monsieur Bélanger for the next five minutes.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Following up on the sources of revenue for the community health co-op, I would point out that in the film industry, product placement is a fairly substantive way of getting revenue. I was wondering if you are getting revenues from the product placement of your coffee cup in front of you.
Member, Community Health Co-operative Federation Ltd.
I was going to put that away, actually.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Mr. Chairman, I want to use some of my time here for a business matter.
I was the instigator of this motion in the House, and I have to admit that the last four days—five, if you include July 10—have been rather instructive in our getting a better understanding of the breadth and importance of co-ops in our country.
I want to raise a couple of questions, which may be addressed later, dealing with the draft report. One is about its timing. Since the resolution, we've adopted calls for the final report to be finalized in the week of August 28. I am hoping that we could confirm that the draft report will be available the week before, perhaps no later than August 22. I've had discussions with the analysts to that effect, and they'd be prepared to do that. I'd like confirmation of that.
Second, in terms of the structure of the report, there are two things I would say. One is that I would hope it would contain—and I would imagine this wouldn't be of any controversy—a very thorough reporting of what we've heard, and perhaps a reflection of the submissions we'll have received by August 7. The document itself would become a sort of reference document for anybody who may have an interest in cooperatives.
It would also address the five items that were itemized in the resolution that Parliament unanimously adopted on May 30, which are the following: identifying the strategic role of cooperatives in our economy; outlining a series of economic, fiscal and monetary policies for strengthening Canadian cooperatives as well as for protecting the jobs they create; exploring the issue of capitalization of cooperatives, its causes, effects and potential solutions; exploring whether the Canada Cooperatives Act of 1998 requires updating; and identifying what tools the government can use to provide greater support and a greater role to Canadian cooperatives.
Finally, I would hope that we will also include the recommendations we've heard. Whether, as a committee, we agree with them or not is something else, and I respect that.
I just wanted to make those points.
I have a quick question for Madam Stark. You mentioned in your statement, and I quote you here, that “the federal regulators have expressed concerns that regionally based credit unions may be at greater risk than banks...”. Can you comment a bit more on that, in maybe a minute?
Vice-President, Legal and Corporate Affairs, Concentra Financial Services Association
From reading the information that's gone around, I believe that some of the regulators involved with the federal trust legislation may have been speaking in British Columbia, though I could be wrong. I think I've heard on a couple of occasions the question posed to credit unions, what are you doing to mitigate your risk and diversify when all of the mortgages you provide, for example, are all in one particular city or area, which could get hit particularly hard? Say, it's an agricultural community that gets hit hard, and then you see a lot of defaults—
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
That's strange, because everything we've heard points to the opposite. That's why I was wondering about it. Could you give us the reference on that? That might be very useful.
Vice-President, Legal and Corporate Affairs, Concentra Financial Services Association
We can submit that to you.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Thank you.
I just need to understand how you structure it or how you work. Am I to understand that an individual cannot do business with Concentra Trust? Or can they?
Vice-President, Legal and Corporate Affairs, Concentra Financial Services Association
Yes, they can. We do have the federal power—
Liberal
Vice-President, Legal and Corporate Affairs, Concentra Financial Services Association
That's right. We have the federal power to do anything. Now, initially, we were doing a lot more work directly with consumers, and what we've done in the last couple of years, at the request of credit unions in the system, is moved away from that and become more of an financial intermediary—
Liberal
Vice-President, Legal and Corporate Affairs, Concentra Financial Services Association
—servicing credit unions in particular. But certainly, a lot of our trust work is still directly with members or directly with people.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Thank you.
I'll go back to the community health co-ops, if I may, in the very short time left. Are you aware if the 116 other health co-ops in the country also have agreements with the provincial authorities and the local health integration networks and so forth? Would you be willing to send us a copy of those agreements so that those of us who are not really familiar with the health co-ops can get a better sense of how they work?
Thanks.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Blake Richards
Did you have a response? Make it brief, please, because Mr. Bélanger's time has expired.
Member, Community Health Co-operative Federation Ltd.
We'd have to contact the federations and other...in Quebec, for instance, to see if they'd be willing to give us examples of the contract that, say, their paramedic services or the home care services have with the provincial government. We can't necessarily say that they would provide you with that.
We'd have to consult our board, but it could be that we could provide you with a copy of the partnership agreement that we would have with the provincial government.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Blake Richards
Thank you very much.
That concludes the first round of questioning. We'll move now to our second round, and first I have Mr. Preston.
You have the floor for the next five minutes, Mr. Preston.
Conservative
Joe Preston Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
Thank you very much, and I thank our witnesses for coming today.
Mr. Bélanger is right: we've learned a lot in these days, and today I think I'm going to learn something new. I think you fit a different role from anybody we've had before us. We've heard from credit unions, both small and large, and the great job they do. We've heard them talk about centrals and the job they help credit unions do.
Where do you fit in this? I'm trying to make it hierarchical in some way—but maybe it's not that way at all.
Vice-President, Legal and Corporate Affairs, Concentra Financial Services Association
I wouldn't suggest that we fit within a hierarchy. Basically, most of what we do at Concentra is to act as an intermediary or a wholesale provider. So we are the intermediary between the credit union and the credit union's members. So if a credit union member comes forward and needs, say, a large commercial loan exceeding the capacity of that credit union or its regulatory capacity, then they can come to Concentra and we can help fund that through a participation or a syndication.
