Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  A lot of it is to do with distances. We have quite a few member plants in northern Alberta, plus the two in the Peace River region of B.C., and they are quite remote, some of our plants. They're in very small communities. With some of the other ones when you get into central Albe

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  With the canola, and stuff like that, that's been pretty well taken away from the seed plants. That's all done by the big companies now, the Bayers and the Monsantos. As far as plant breeders' rights are concerned, those varieties are grown by some of the seed growers, and thos

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Yes, it is a bit of a problem. Basically, plants will try a new system. The one seed plant at Bashaw, about three years ago, put in the first colour sorter. By the end of this year, 30-some plants will have colour sorters installed. One plant will try something, and then everyb

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Last year we cleaned a little over 33 million bushels in our 71 plants. This year we are going to be quite a ways above that, because more of these plants have put in colour sorters and that sort of thing. The biggest thing is that we've had a big problem with ergot in our wheat

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  This would be our sixtieth year in January 2012.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Yes, we now have 71 members in our association. A lot of it has changed because we have lost a lot of the provincial and municipal involvement in our plants. When we first started 60 years ago we were able to access grants from the province and from the municipalities, as well a

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  No we haven't had anybody with any investments from any RSPs or anything like that.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Yes. I think because that's fairly recent it maybe hasn't trickled down to all of our member plants yet. It might be one of the reasons.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Yes, it would be some changes to the regulation, as well as the Income Tax Act.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  The biggest thing is that we have lots of members. They can invest now in the co-op, but they don't really get any kind of tax incentive or that sort of thing, as other Canadian corporations might get when you make an investment in such a corporation. We have lots of farmers wh

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Yes, loud and clear.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Thank you very much. Good afternoon. My name is John McBain. I'm vice-president of the Alberta Association of Co-operative Seed Cleaning Plants. We represent 71 member plants: 69 in Alberta and two in the Peace River region of B.C. Each plant is a locally owned co-op run by a bo