Finance committee  I guess in part, yes. The whole capitalization dilemma for agricultural co-ops, for worker cooperatives, is that in terms of regular venture capital, there is no exit strategy. So they're not interested in putting in their money in the first place. As well, cooperatives maximize the services to members instead of maximizing the returns to shareholders, which is another reason why raising capital becomes a very difficult premise.

Finance committee  It's the right question and a good question, but the problem I have in directly answering the question is that if you look at my specific background, I don't have an agricultural co-op background. As you know, there are many agricultural co-ops across the country. This recommendation to you about a co-op investment plan is certainly endorsed right across the board by agricultural cooperatives—small, medium, large—across the country.

Finance committee  I'm just going to very briefly answer your question. From the point of view of the Canadian Worker Co-operative Federation, just being completely straightforward about this, our attention and energy would now be shifting towards expanding the federal government's co-op development initiative.

Finance committee  Hi. My name is Mark Goldblatt, and I am the president of the Canadian Worker Cooperative Federation. I am going to divide my short remarks into three areas--what a worker co-op is, how the model can be applied in enterprise situations, and then our specific budget requests. First, what are worker co-ops?