With a band playing and co-operative enthusiasts packing a small room at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Canada kicked off its celebration of International Year of Co-operatives Jan. 11.
Similar events were held across the country to launch a year that will include local events, promotion of the role of co-ops and major conferences in Montreal June 27-29 and Quebec City Oct. 8-11.
Veterans affairs minister Steven Blaney, MP for the Qubec city of Lvis, which was the site of the first Canadian credit union (Caisse Populaire) more than 110 years ago, spoke for the government during the official launch.
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The United Nations-designated Year of the Co-operatives is “a unique opportunity to celebrate the contribution of co-operatives to Canada,” he said via an often-jumbled video link across the country.
There are more than 9,000 co-ops with 18 million Canadian members, he added.
Kathy Bardswick, president of the Co-operators insurance company, said from Calgary that the next year will be used in Canada and around the world to promote the idea of local capital and local control of financing at a time when skepticism lingers about the role of greed in the financial collapse of 2008.
“The time has never been better for the promotion and growth of the co-operative model,” she said.
“We are entrepreneurs for a better world.”
Claude Gauthier, president of the Canadian Co-operative Association, said the year of celebration is an opportunity to “educate the public, and our own co-op members, about the enormous role co-operatives play in building communities, revitalizing economies and creating jobs here in Canada and around the world.”
The Canadian government supported the UN motion to declare a year of co-operatives and is sharing in event funding.
According to the CCA, co-ops employed more than 155,000 Canadians last year and held assets of more than $370 billion.
A co-operative political goal this year, as it has been in recent years, will be to lobby Ottawa for a tax credit for capital investments in perpetually under-capitalized co-ops.
