Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to state, on behalf of the Bloc Quebecois, on this third reading that we too will be supporting this bill, which modernizes the Canada Co-operatives Act.
It is important to point out that Quebec has a very strong co-operative movement. Of the 2,973 co-operatives in Quebec, according to the most recent statistics of the Secrétariat aux coopératives, only six are covered by the Canadian legislation. It is important to point this out right at the start, in order to explain that, regardless of certain reservations I and the co-operatives of Quebec may have had at the start, after the work in committee, and because there were negotiations held in complete equality between the Canadian Federation of Co-operatives and the Conseil québécois des coopératives, I am pleased to state that we will be fully supporting this bill, setting aside those reservations and concerns.
Obviously, I need to explain a bit about what I mean when I refer to reservations and concerns. It must be stated that the Canadian Federation of Co-operatives, in creating this process, a process focussed on calling for new legislation from the federal government, has proceeded democratically through consultation, and made its request. The request was granted. The Federation consulted the Quebec co-operatives and finally came to agree with the bill drafted by the government legal specialists.
What the Canadian Co-operative Association was doing was to modernize the Canada Co-operative Act, and this must be said, as others have before me: co-operatives in this world we are living in, especially the big ones, have to compete in the market with the big businesses and multinationals and find themselves obliged to have capital it was hard for them to acquire under previous Canadian legislation, and this was also true of previous Quebec legislation.
The Canadian Co-operative Association wanted its members to have, and some of my colleagues will tell you about this, the means to ensure that this different form of business, a co-operative business, something that is eminently desirable in our society, could survive in a highly competitive environment.
I would like to use third reading of this bill to draw attention to a kerfuffle that occurred when the committee submitted its report to the House. The kerfuffle arose because the government proposed an amendment, which apparently deprived members of the power to permanently replace resigning members of boards of directors. I say apparently because government members noted, after I spoke, that the law clerks had made an error and that, without this amendment, two sentences in the bill would have been contradictory.
I want to point it out, since, because examination in committee was on a consensual basis, I felt obliged at third reading to oppose an amendment by the government that had not been debated, that was not submitted to us and that ran totally counter to the spirit of co-operation. I did my work, but in the end it enabled us to see that the legislation did contain another provision permitting the members to retain their power.
I will now move on to the next stage in my speech, which is to take this opportunity to stress the importance in Quebec of the co-operative movement. It is interesting to note that I am doing so based on the document put together by the Cooperatives Secretariat, which comes under federal jurisdiction. It contains statistics on all Canadian cooperatives in Quebec and the other provinces.
It is very interesting to see that, in Quebec, there are 2,973 associations, including financial cooperatives, the Desjardins cooperatives as we call them at home. In all of Canada, there are 7,870 cooperatives. This means that 38% of all Canadian cooperatives are in Quebec. In terms of membership, there are 6,210,000 coop members in Quebec out of 14 million for Canada as a whole. Here again, Quebec's share exceeds 42%, even though, I repeat, less than 25% of the Canadian population now lives in Quebec.
Cooperatives in Quebec report sales of $9 billion, which represents slightly more than 25% of the Canadian total. As we know, in western Canada, there are large cooperatives, especially those involved in the production and sale of wheat. In terms of assets, Quebec accounts for $54 billion or 33%, compared to $156 billion in the rest of Canada. That too is a very large amount.
In fact, I think it is fair to say—and my hon. colleagues agreed with me—that Quebec is fertile ground for cooperatives. Naturally, a major player is the Mouvement Desjardins, the Desjardins financial cooperative movement, but it is not the only one. There are also other types of cooperatives in Quebec as in the other provinces. It is important to note this. We seldom talk about this different yet important aspect of our economy, so let us take this opportunity to do so.
There are 204 consumer cooperatives in Quebec, 76 purchasing cooperatives, 48 marketing cooperatives, 5 fishermen's cooperatives, 96 producers' cooperatives, 1,221 service cooperatives, 1,318 caisses populaires and a few others. Some of these coops have been operating for a long time.
It is important—I would need more time than I have today at the rate at which things are going today—to at least mention that the cooperative movement was instrumental in ensuring Quebec's economic development, especially at a time when the economy was dominated by the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
In fact, when we look at today's major Quebec-owned businesses, we notice that two public institutions were instrumental in developing a mixed economy in our province, that is a capitalistic and a co-operative economy. I am referring to the Caisse de dépôt et placement, and to the co-operatives. Among Quebec's major businesses, in addition to financial institutions, we find the Fédérée, which employs 5,000 people, and which plays a key role in food production, consumption and processing. There is also Natrel and others. I will not name them all, but there are quite a few.
I want to say a word about some co-operatives that we seldom talk about. Those found on the island of Montreal are representative. There are co-ops in the education, housing and agri-food sectors. There are also caisses populaires of a different type, such as the Coopérative de consommation des employés d'Hydro-Québec, and the new Coopérative des services télématiques Centre René-Lévesque. There is a co-op that offers Internet servers to all social and community organizations in the Montreal region.
There is a type of co-op that does not get enough publicity, that does not get enough support. Yet, this type of co-op helps “create jobs” in a world where unemployment is rampant, including for professionals and people who have great qualifications. I am referring to workers' co-operatives. All the other co-operatives that I mentioned are co-ops whose members get together to give themselves services, including housing and consumer services, to transform products which they produce, or to have access to an Internet server. However, workers' co-ops are unusual in that their members get together to create work for themselves.
This type of co-op is more difficult to establish, because while its members must act like entrepreneurs and make their businesses succeed by producing, by selling, by developing a market and by being competitive, they are also employees governed by a collective form of management that is different from that of other businesses, including co-ops in which members are the employers but not the employees.
When this type of co-operative is implemented, it allows businesses to get through severe financial difficulties. We are familiar with some in Montreal, and elsewhere in the province, who have survived the depression and increased the number of jobs, major firms such as the printing co-operative Harpel. These co-operatives are a testimony to the fact that it is possible, even in this day and age, to develop a business that is both competitive and profitable, allowing its employees to have a life, allowing them to experience other kinds of labour relations and of management, and allowing the workers who have joined together to create jobs for themselves.
I repeat that we in the Block support this Bill C-5, an Act respecting co-operatives. After discussions between equals, the Conseil québécois des coopératives agreed to support this bill, which affects only six co-operatives in Quebec but may, if they come to operate in several provinces, apply to other co-operatives currently operating only in Quebec.
We are therefore pleased to support this bill, even if the co-operators who called for it know that there are risks in allowing members in co-operatives who are in fact not members but holders of capital, who are providing assistance to the co-operative in competing with other businesses, while at the same time helping themselves through the profits they can earn as a result.