Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  We certainly have. When we did the major project five or six years ago we modernized the plant. It certainly helped streamline things. Again, we find it difficult, because we're seasonal. A lot of our employees are aging, so we find it very necessary now to try to streamline th

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Yes, the two that we have developed have cut back somewhat on our need for workers. It allows us to put more product through. But more important, it's the new markets and the new products that have been established by it that have helped the most.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  To be perfectly honest with you, I don't know. Perhaps Mr. Webb would be a better person to answer. To my knowledge, there's no real tax advantage to it, in our case.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  A balance obviously works best. Because of the type of co-op we are, and because of the history of it.... It was formed by a group of fishermen who had a tough time selling their products, had a tough time getting a decent return. They have, over the past number of years, tried

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Yes--this year in particular. Most years it's obviously not an issue. In terms of the upcoming season starting August 9, because of the situation in the U.S., with their season starting a month earlier than it really has ever started before, there's a glut in the market. There we

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  I can't speak on the co-ops in general, the co-op movement. Other than the co-op I'm working at, I haven't had a whole lot of experience. I'm probably the prime example of what Mr. Webb mentioned. I came from larger companies within the corporate structure. So it was a complete s

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Yes, to ACOA.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Our member shareholders—because of the last three years—can't take their shares out, even if they sell their gear or whatever, until they become 65. At that time they retire and we release the shares. We've had a great deal of investment. Over the last several months we've had m

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  During our good times...probably seven years back, for instance, we had a year that we had profits of $1.3 million. What we did at that time—because of the regulations that exist within P.E.I.—is we paid 9% interest on their shares. If somebody had $10,000 in shares, we paid 9% i

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  I have been there since 1997, 16 years, and six years ago we spent $5.5 million completely redoing the plant. At that time we borrowed most of the money. The province contributed somewhere in the area of $900,000. We did get an ACOA loan for $500,000, which is obviously still on

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  It's generally a combination. We have a broker that we work through. A little bit of the money is borrowed through them, but the majority of it is through the credit union. To be honest with you, we put that money out in a four- to five-month period and it takes us 12 months to p

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  It's more for operating costs. We've done a lot of work to the plant and stuff, so we have whatever you want to call it, a mortgage or whatever, a long-term debt on the plant of around $3.5 million, and the remainder is working capital.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  It's probably better. I know the broker we work through...we actually get a better rate than what we do through the broker and what the broker pays. It's generally a very good rate that we're able to achieve through the credit union.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Our members—and that is all I can speak to—are very interested. We've spent a lot of money.... As I said, we're the only lobster processing plant now left in eastern Canada that is BRC-approved—British Retail Consortium approved—which allows us to sell into the U.K. retail busine

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  To begin with, we've been growing. We've been allowing the fishermen in our area to actually have a home to sell their product, which is sometimes a little more difficult than it would appear. We've created one of the best plans in terms of quality—we're BRC-approved. We're one o