History of cooperatives in Canada

Cooperative movement in Canada
1840s–recent
The conference of the cooperative movement in Chéticamp, Nova Scotia (Canada) in 1947.

Cooperative movement in Canada is a social and economic movement that started in the middle of 19th century and continues until today. During Great Migration of Canada many British as well as citizens from other European countries immigrate to Canada caring new ideas of cooperative enterprises. Starting with unsuccessful attempts but inspired by examples from British cooperative movement as well as fast development of Canada as a state, cooperative movement became one of the important events in Canadian economic history.

Reasons

Industrialization lead to emergence of large centralized factory systems in the urban centres. These systems disrupted existing crafts system and many Canadian craftsmen lost their power on the market very quickly. As a consequence many craftsmen became poor or lost their job. This factors made craftsmen to start to unite in small cooperative enterprises to provide themselves power to control their business and products they couldn't afford otherwise. That's how cooperative movement began:

The crafts system, that was basically located in local homes and villages, was completely undermined and disrupted. The concentration of workers in large centralized factory systems in the urban centres entailed a massive migration of people from the country side to over-crowded cities... The kind of power that a craftsman might have over his work and how it was sold and the price he got for it was, overnight, undermined by a weight system that really impoverished a huge number of people. It also created an enormous amount of unemployment... So if you put these factors together you had a response and a reaction to that, and part of that was the co-operative movement.

— John Restakis, Executive Director of the British Columbia Co-operatives Association

History

Early attempts

In the middle of 19th century, Canada goes through big events in its history History of Canada. After series of rebellions rebellions of 1837 British government by the Act of Union in 1840 unites Lower and Upper Canada into the United Province of Canada and after 8 years Canada achieves a responsible government. With going in background Great Migration of Canada Canada gets a huge impulse for development, Canada gets more and more power from Britain that gradually gives back it colonies during Territorial evolution of Canada.

British ideas of cooperatives flows into Canada and first attempts of establishing new marketing cooperatives could be found around 1840s. However, most of them were unstable and failed. The first recorded consumer cooperative was organized at Stellarton, Nova Scotia, in 1864 . Same year there are records that the first cooperative bank was organized in Prince Edward Island in North Rustico and during 1880s with support of Knights of Labor trade union some worker cooperatives emerged.

These early attempts took place before there was any specific cooperative legislation or accepted international principles. That allowed to cooperative members to create their own agile company law to follow that was very important on early stages of development.

Rural cooperatives

Agricultural movements were the first successfull cooperative movements in Canada. Dairy industry had a lot of opportunities because many farmers had some excess in production of milk, and between 1860 and 1900 not without help of Canadian Pacific Railway there were developed over 1200 cooperative creameries and cheese factories in Ontario, Québec and Atlantic Canada. With becoming more common reefer ships cheese became a major export to Great Britain.

Grain Growers Grain Co circa 1910

In Prairie Canada farmers led by Edward Alexander Partridge organized the Grain Growers' Grain Company in 1906. Their aim was to market directly to millers and European buyers. Before World War I many other farmer cooperatives appear in different branches of agricultural industry, such as fruit, livestock, tobacco. In particular, the Saskatchewan Co-operative Elevator Co. appeared in 1911 and the Alberta Farmers' Co-operative Elevator Co.

Rural cooperatives had a huge influence in politics area. Among main movements were the Patrons of Husbandry (1870s), the Patrons of Industry (1890s), Progressive movement (1914-1930), the western branches of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and Social Credit Party of Canada (both in 1930s)

During World War I rural cooperatives expanded rapidly due to consumer demand in cheaper food. Morever, farmers explored new ways of marketing and cooperative ways of saving and borrowing money. Ones of cooperatives who experienced bigger growth were new multipurpose Co-operative Fédérée (established 1910 in Québec), and United Farmers' Co-operative (established 1914 in Ontario).

Alberta Grain Company Grain Elevator

By 1919 as farmers wanted to control the marketing of their products more, they were drawn in a system so called "cooperative pooling". The principles of system was to sign contract with cooperative members to sell all their products through their cooperative. In return members would receive dividends. According to these principles farmers of Prairies organized wheat pools in 1920s.

Consumer cooperatives

Early consumer cooperatives were created by immigrants from Europe who brought new economic ideas with them. They were British, Finnish, Italian, and Ukrainian workers, most commonly in the mining towns of Cape Breton, Northern Ontario, the Rocky Mountains and Vancouver Island. The British consumer theory of cooperation dominated.

The consumer movement was supported by the Cooperative Union of Canada that was organized in 1909 and particularly by its General Secretary, George Keen.

Financial cooperatives

In 1900 Alphonse Desjardins founded banking cooperative or his first caisse populaire in Québec that now is known as Desjardins Group. Using connections within the Roman Catholic Church and with key political figures Alphonse created a foundation for this movement before his death in 1920.

Movement got more power with appearance of insurance and trust companies in 1940s and 1950s in Québec, Ontario and Saskatchewan.

Cooperative housing

Cooperative housing couldn't start until the 1930s when mining families in Nova Scotia had serious housing problems. The Antigonish movement in attempt to develop housing coops invited Mary Arnold, one of the most important housing leaders in New York, to come to Cape Breton and promote their ideas. As a result cooperatives of families united to build houses for themselves and over 30,000 houses would be built in Atlantic Canada.

At the same time more conventional housing cooperatives appeared among students at the University of Toronto. Students at Queen’s University, Waterloo University and Ottawa University also joined the movement. Today, it is rather small but successful.

After World War II some citizens of the biggest cities in Canada started to independently organize housing cooperatives and sometimes also living communities. This way cooperatives continued to develop during 1960 and 1970s.

Worker cooperatives

After unsuccessfull attempts of Knights of Labour to develop worker coops in the 1880s, there were several local provincial efforts in the twentieth century. Only during economic expansion after World War II ideas of worker cooperatives started to be taken seriously. The largest ones appeared in Québec forestry industries and they remain this way until today.

In the 1960s and 1970s worker cooperatives began to appear in Montréal, Toronto, Vancover and Victoria. They helped to develop similar coops in many areas of industry including energy, bakeries, tourism, crafts, restaurants and some social services.

Fishing cooperatives

East Coast fishing cooperatives were started in 1920s. These cooperatives found themselves in difficult marketing situation and were not stable in maintaining effective united front to their industry competitors. Hardly organized and despite support from Antigonish movement, in 1970s and 1980s the cooperatives were not able to show the federal government the need to protect the fisheries they were worked in and it lead to rapid decline in fishing stocks and the destructin of these fisheries in the 1980s.

West Coast fishing cooperatives began at about the same time. In contrast, with the help of fishing unions, they had strong associational spirit. Eventually, they united in the large fishing cooperative located in Prince Rupert on the northern coast of British Columbia called The Prince Rupert Fishermen's Co-operative Association. Its leaders became important figures in the Canadian movement generally and its general manager, Ken Harding, became an international leader in the cooperative fishing world.

Health cooperatives

The need in proper health services was quite common in Canada especially in lands with low population density. This made some rural cooperatives to make arrangements with doctors for their members as early as the 1920s. In the 1960s, inspired by Beveridge report that British government started to implement after World War II, Canadian government introduced universal health care in Saskatchewan. It lead to strikes of province's doctors and cooperatives health clinics started to appear in Saskatoon.

Further development of cooperatives began also outside of Saskatchewan but it was hard to organise cooperative health clinics with health system financed by government. In recent years, interest in health cooperatives increased with rise of health care costs. Nowadays, around 60% of all health coops in Canada are situated in Québec

Examples of cooperatives in Canada nowadays

The three major Canadian cooperative organizations:

• CCA - Canadian Co-operative Association
• DID - Développement international Desjardins
• SOCODEVI - société de coopération pour le développement international

There exist some notable aboriginal cooperatives:

• Akochikan Co-operative: Pukatawagan, Manitoba
• Ikaluktutiak Co-operative: Cambridge Bay, Nunavut
• Neechi Foods Co-operative Limited: Winnipeg, Manitoba

See also

• To the members of the Grange Patrons of Husbandry of Canada, these essays, Flora, Ceres, and Ponoma are respectfully dedicated by Mrs. Moffat, Edge Hill, Ontario
• Grain elevators of Port Arthur & Fort William
• Organising Fishery Co-operatives in British Columbia: A Handbook
• The Co-operative Union of Canada (organised 1909) and its objects.
• Pictures of Ukrainian in Canada, late 19th and early 20th century
• MacPherson, Ian (2007). One Path to co-operative studies: A selection of papers and presentations (PDF). {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)
• Mook, Laurie; Jennifer Hann; Jack Quarter (2012). "Understanding the Rural Tilt among Financial Cooperatives in Canada". ANSERJ. 3 (Spring / Printemps, 2012): 42–58.