Finance committee  That's a good question. We certainly do support cooperative child care spaces, in particular a multi-stakeholder model, where both the parents and the people who work in the child care co-ops can take some ownership of the quality of the services for child care. If parents were involved in how their child care services are run, I would argue that would have a significant impact on productivity.

Finance committee  There were three pillars to the social economy: a research pillar, which has rolled out, and two other pillars—one for patient capital, and a third pillar for capacity building. We know from experience internationally in growing the cooperative movement in many other countries that you need to marry the financial assistance and some patient capital with technical assistance as well.

Finance committee  Yes, that is correct. The main reason for that is that the contract had been signed in Quebec and was just about ready to be signed in Ontario with FedNor, the regional development agency.

Finance committee  The Quebec money was around $30 million, I believe. The entire program was $132 million.

Finance committee  Thank you very much. Good afternoon. I'm very pleased to be here from the Canadian Co-operative Association. We're an umbrella organization representing 31 co-operative members, who in turn represent 3,000 co-operatives and over 7 million individual members. Co-operatives are present in many sectors of our economy, from agriculture and banking, through to energy, health, and housing.