Canada

Dru Oja Jay is joined by Kevin Harding, one of the organizers of a spirited hail-mary attempt to save Mountain Equipment Co-op from being sold off to a US private equity firm.

In the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, getting out in a canoe to harvest manoomin, or wild rice (Zizania palustris), is a political assertion of indigenous food sovereignty for Anishinaabe people.

Canadian members of the African diaspora make use of traditional forms of group savings, known as susu, to overcome financial and cultural exclusion in the mainstream system. 

Conversations with a member of a home care worker co-op, and the co-author of a paper laying out possibilities for a federation structure for care sector cooperatives.

A Rotating Savings and Credit Association (ROSCA) is a group of individuals who act as an alternative financial institution. Each person contributes money towards a common fund, and the funds rotate through members at regular intervals. The member who borrows the funds will eventually repay their portion back into the association so the next member can withdraw their share.

At Louder Than Ten, we know that worker-owned cooperatives are scientifically proven to be more sustainable, more productive, and longer-lasting. Our conversion to a co-op was the next logical step in our belief and commitment to an equal power structure—and it just makes practical business sense.

To make housing truly affordable, governments need to support non-profit housing cooperatives.

Cinar, Larry, and Kevin talk with Hazel Corcoran and Jared Blustein from the Canadian Worker Cooperative Federation.

How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the way co-ops do business in Ontario? Are there new ways of collaborating or communicating that are leading to innovation and growth of the sector?

ROSCAs consist of the regular pooling of money among friends and neighbors. It’s a way for individuals to amass chunks of money and is relied upon by millions of Black women in Africa, the Caribbean, and North America as a trusted alternative to formal banking systems that often exclude them.