Cooperatives in Canada

Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 44. Chapters: Aaron Webster Housing Cooperative, Agropur, Alberta Wheat Pool, Antigonish Movement, Arbeiter Ring Publishing, Arctic Co-operatives Limited, Battle River Railway, Blocks Recording Club, Calgary Co-op, Canadian Co-operative Association, Canadian University Press, Castle Building Centres Group, CCRL Refinery Complex, CFRO-FM, CHLI-FM, CHOQ-FM, CHQC-FM, CJLM-FM, CJLY-FM, CJNU-FM, CKGN-FM, CKLF-FM, CKMA-FM, Co-op Atlantic, Farmers' Bank of Rustico, Farmers of North America, Federated Co-operatives, Gay Lea, Gosfield North Communications Co-operative, Growmark, Guelph Campus Cooperative, Home Hardware, Island Media Arts Cooperative, Matador Cooperative Farm, Mondragon Bookstore & Coffeehouse, Mountain Equipment Co-op, Northern Breweries, Ontario Co-operative Association, Organic Meadow Cooperative, Otter Co-op, Princess Towers, Riding Mountain Broadcasting, Rochdale College, Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, Saskatoon Co-op, Saskatoon Farmers' Market, Sherwood Co-op, Southern Rails Cooperative, The Canadian Press, The Co-operators, The Hoito, United Farmers of Alberta, United Grain Growers, Waterloo Co-operative Residence Incorporated, Westman Communications Group, Wireless Nomad, Zone Coopérative de l'Université Laval. Excerpt: The Antigonish Movement blended adult education, co-operatives, microfinance and rural community development to help small, resource-based communities around Canadäs Maritimes improve their economic and social circumstances. A group of priests and educators, including Father Jimmy Tompkins, Father Moses Coady, Rev. Hugh MacPherson and A.B. MacDonald led this movement from a base at the Extension Department at St. Francis Xavier University (St. F.X.) in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. The credit union systems of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and PEI owe their origins to the Antigonish Movement, which also had an important influence on other provincial systems across Canada. The Coady International Institute at St. F.X. has been instrumental in developing credit unions and in asset-based community development initiatives in developing countries ever since. As educators and priests, the leaders of the Antigonish Movement were primarily concerned with human and spiritual development. The title of Moses Coady¿s only book ¿ Masters of Their Own Destiny ¿ encapsulates this desire to see ordinary Nova Scotians achieve economic and social freedom. However Coady argued that for practical reasons "we consider it good pedagogy and good psychology to begin with the economic phase ¿ that we may more readily attain the spiritual and cultural towards which all our efforts are directed." Ordinary Nova Scotians he argued, had only themselves to blame for their poverty and vulnerability. They had permitted money and business to become mysterious forces outside of their control. Fishers and farmers for example, were exploited by marketing middlemen. Everyone was exploited by moneylenders. If they took the time to understand their circumstances and took the risks of co-operative action, they could achieve economic security and on that foundation greater freedom and self-realization. In a vision that has been renewed today in digital forms of mass collaboration, Coady argued that "the only hope o