Agriculture committee  Yes, that's $70 million for a patient capital fund and $30 million for advisory services and grants to emerging co-ops.

Agriculture committee  Sure. The $30 million is envisioned to be a mix of national advisory services as well as provincial advisory services that would be $6 million a year. There's additional funding for grants to emerging cooperatives, not just agricultural cooperatives, but to all kinds of cooperatives.

Agriculture committee  It was a patient capital fund of $70 million, but that would not just be for agricultural cooperatives. That would be under a generic co-op development initiative.

Agriculture committee  The patient capital fund would be over five years, and it's $30 million for advisory services.

Agriculture committee  Good afternoon. I'm Carol Hunter, the executive director of the Canadian Co-operative Association. I'm pleased to be joined by Lynne Markell, who is our government affairs and public policy adviser and who specializes in agricultural policy. The Canadian Co-operative Association is a national association for cooperatives.

Human Resources committee  I would just say that Canada prides itself on having a mixed economy. It's not a socialist economy; it's not just a private sector economy. The point was made earlier that the social economy really is an apolitical issue. It's something that other governments in Europe have recognized from all parties, that it's a very important part of the economy.

Human Resources committee  No.

Human Resources committee  I'm not sure. I'm not sure I understood the question, to be honest. I would say the province didn't have the money yet, so there was no money--

Human Resources committee  It's abnormal to have a national program that's not rolled out across the country, if it's called national.

Human Resources committee  With other programs, like health care, there's value in having a national policy directive and coordination at a national level but delivery at a provincial level. I would still argue that there is a key role for a federal government to play in a social economy, not just devolving it all to the provinces.

Human Resources committee  I would just add, for co-operatives, certainly in terms of our return on investment, we have patronage dividends with co-operatives that recirculate in the community, and you could actually commodify volunteerism of co-operatives with those 75,000 directors that sit on co-op boards.

Human Resources committee  Absolutely. One interesting thing would have been to have measured the lost opportunity costs by not rolling out the program. What have we lost by not going forward with a number of initiatives? Clearly, we don't have the instruments to do that measurement, but by not making the investments, by not kick-starting small enterprises that could get started--as Nancy says, it's nine to one in Quebec--if you use the same arithmetic with the leveraging argument, we have a lot of lost opportunities.

Human Resources committee  I would just add the comment that certainly there is no good reason why it should not be rolled out. We see the success in Quebec. If the name “social economy” is a barrier to many Canadians and has a flavour of socialism, which may alienate some Canadians, then I would argue that the community enterprise, which is the same thing as a social enterprise, may be better understood outside of Quebec.

Human Resources committee  Actually, regarding the child care spaces initiative--I believe that's the program--we were invited by the Conservative government to submit a paper on the application of the child care co-operative model, and we were pleased to do that. The multi-stakeholder model is a very effective model that can actually increase productivity in the workplace when parents are involved in the care of their children in a child care co-operative.

Human Resources committee  As part of promotion of the co-operative model, we've been promoting child care in child care co-operatives and funeral co-ops, but in terms of any particular initiative with just child care, there was no particular initiative in the past, or with the current government. We've been invited to give information on the child care model, but there's been no programming, to my knowledge.