Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  I think the rural and cooperatives secretariat is just finalizing how it's restructuring. We have a very good relationship with them, but we are concerned. The capacity within that department is completely devastated. It's going from I think 92 staff members down to six or eight,

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  As a sector, we fully understand that we have to deal with our deficit. The government has some real, strong economic challenges. We understand that and we understand the job. But the reality, both in terms of the role of the cooperative secretariat and the program—the CDI—is tha

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  I would say we haven't gone into those kinds of details. We're at the very high level in terms of looking at the potential for a new partnership. We haven't gone into any of those kinds of details at this point.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  I would say it's at an individual CFDC level, and there are lots of great partnerships happening. Certainly there are many board members, similar to what you said about credit unions, who are board members of CFDC. Those kinds of relationships are happening, but it's not an insti

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Yes. We're also looking for all staff at CFDCs to understand the cooperative enterprise and the way it's organized.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  I think it's really good to be doing this process in the summer. I think it's great to...even though it's a challenge for everybody. I thank everybody around the table for this, because I know how difficult it is. But I think it's a missed opportunity if we do not take advantage

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Do you mean with Mr. Ritz? No, we have yet to have that meeting.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Certainly efforts were made.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  We did have a meeting with a senior policy advisor.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  It was a very positive meeting.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  I think it's going to be a lot more difficult for cooperatives to get the right type of the services they need. It's a very specialized service, working to understanding the provincial acts plus working with the group dynamics of setting up a cooperative, and it takes time. One o

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  We certainly want to be able to access that research. Taxpayers paid for it, and there's a lot of information that's really important for us as a sector that we still haven't been able to access. From my understanding, the co-op secretariat did a review of the federal act. We hav

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Three recommendations were in the budget bill. One was a tax credit similar to what's happening in Quebec for cooperatives. The second was support for the capital fund, and the third was the renewal of the cooperative development initiative. We know that the cooperative develop

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  The cooperative development initiative is very significant in infrastructure, not only in supporting emerging cooperatives but also in small amounts of money that went to all the francophone and anglophone provincial associations to provide staffing, in terms of expertise to be p

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  I would hope so. We're certainly going to be giving a submission on the 2013 budget. We did a budget submission for 2012. We had our three legacy wishes. Obviously, we did not get support for those, but we're hoping to strengthen our partnership with the government. We are hoping