When a special House of Commons committee tabled a report last week on the co-operative sector, it signalled a more mature view of the sector by politicians.
It also signalled the disturbing reality that private sector lobby groups have given up trying to change this government’s mind on anything.
The current government attitude is: “Decision made and if you don’t like it, get out of the way.”
But let’s start with the more positive news.
Last week’s report signals a political understanding that the co-op sector is huge, is economically influential, is not to be patronized or taken for granted.
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And it is not just a nostalgic rural reflection of the days when people (mainly farmers) got together to organize services for themselves that profit-driven capitalism would not provide.
These days, co-ops range from the traditional agricultural organizations to funeral services, massive retail store chains, housing and any variety of activities between.
Yet until now, political and bureaucratic Ottawa did not get it.
The system still saw this sector, now encompassing millions of Canadians and hundreds of billions of dollars in assets, as a rural backwater best served by Agriculture Canada where it first was housed.
Last week’s report suggested that political responsibility be shifted from Agriculture Canada, which has increasingly seen the sector as outside its core interest, to Industry Canada.
The government would be smart to jump on this recommendation in what is the Year of the Co-operatives as proclaimed by the United Nations.
Shawn Murphy, manager of government relations for the sector’s most powerful lobby — the Canadian Co-operative Association —said the move to industry would be a better fit so “governments will understand co-ops are businesses.”
But there is much the committee report did not address: the longstanding sector call for a co-op investment tax credit, although it did suggest the government look at the issue; budget cuts that eliminated the Co-operative Development Initiative and decimated Agriculture Canada’s co-ops secretariat; and the lobby dating back to the 1980s for a separate co-operatives department in the federal government.
Yet the CCA uttered not a word of criticism about the omissions, seeing the call for more government contact with the sector as a positive outcome.
But what about the bitter co-op denunciation in spring about the government decision to eliminate a decades-old program to help nurture new and emerging co-ops?
At the time, agriculture minister Gerry Ritz said a rich sector has no need for a small federal fund that is mainly used to produce booklets about co-operative history.
The remark enraged some sector leaders but last week, nothing.
Murphy offered a practical but chilling explanation. Sector leaders decided it was not worth the effort to fight a government that won’t take no for an answer.
“The sector was upset but there was an understanding that this government in particular does not change its mind on a decision,” he said.
So public pressure does not matter. Politics do not matter.
As Ritz said during the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly debate: if you are not with me, get out of the way because the train is coming.
Even a sector as potentially powerful as co-operatives got the message and decided not to push back.
This is a government in control.
