Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  I'd suggest there is some truth to that. To give you a for instance—farmers are very astute business people, absolutely—in our rural community, there are no businesses. There are some streets that have three businesses on them and that's it. There's the local petroleum dealer, a

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Absolutely, that's exactly the case. In those situations they're actually a really good ambassador for their credit union because they're out there telling people of their situation and then we'll have others who will come in as a result. It's not necessarily within a month or tw

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  To reiterate what Canadian Central is saying, what we'd like to see is a parliamentary review of the FCC's mandate on a regular basis, similar to the BDC and Export Development Canada, and that the FCC complement our business rather than compete with it. I think we exist well wit

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Yes, it is.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  In our situation, we have an excellent resource with Canadian Central. I think they have a very good program for a director that's coming into our system. I really commend them for the effort they've put into developing that program over the last 10 to 15 years.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  We have a number of different initiatives that we get involved with on an ad hoc basis. In the small town of Beiseker, for example, we donated $25,000 I believe to part of a building project that they were doing for the community. Every year we commit to funding or sponsoring and

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Yes, we are, in Langdon, a town of 3,400 people just outside of Calgary, which has no financial institution today.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Well, this is where we come back to our governance model. It's really our board of directors, who represent our members, whom we sit down with. We collectively build out our strategic plan and understand where our growth opportunities are. Are they things that we really want to g

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  They grew in 2012, but only in deposits, not in loans, and loans are our most productive asset. In fact, our loan portfolio has been diminishing.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  That's on a system-wide or provincial basis. It's not ours, I wish it were ours.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Yes, it is very significant.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Yes, we would give preference to that. Again, we understand the model, we understand the direction, we understand that it's member owned and that there is some continuity on a long-term basis versus a single owner business where the governance is one person basically, or a family

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  That's a great question. Yes, I do see that in time for some credit unions. There are probably one or two a year that may occur in Alberta, typically small credit unions that one or two people are employed in, or that are open 12 hours a week—that type of thing. I know there was

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Yes, we do with other credit unions and then with Concentra as well. So we'll get involved with either buying tranches of mortgage pools or we'll participate in a syndication on a large funding arrangement.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  For Mountain View Credit Union specifically, it's not something we're considering at this time. We serve members in a soon-to-be 12 communities in central Alberta, and we have a lot on our plate just for the next four or five years. Becoming a chartered under the federal regulati