this post was submitted on 03 May 2024
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Canada general co-op assistance: https://canada.coop/en/starting-a-co-op/
USA non-profit, but food co-op specific: https://fci.coop/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Startup_Guide2017.pdf
BC produced, but usable anywhere: https://bcca.coop/app/uploads/2020/06/BCCA-Cultivating-Coops-2018-1.pdf
I do quite like co-ops, but I was thinking a crown corporation, just because that way they'd have the scale to seriously threaten Loblaws and the like.
Of course, the problem with crown corporations is that as soon as the Conservatives get into power, they'll sell it for pennies (and probably to Loblaws)
See also: PetroCan
Yeah. We could have been Norway, with a ridiculous sovereign fund, but instead the right wing gave it away
And Potash. And Telus. The list of all the crowns we sold is long and getting longer.
So a publicly "invested" coop. You know like those publicly invested private EV battery plants.
I would make the comparison to SaskTel or Canada Post
Kinda but Canada Post and SaskTel are crown corporations which means pipsqueak can sell them like Manitoba sold MTS. A private workers' co-op (could even be a non-profit) can't be sold by an ideologue and its workers are likely to keep it sustainable and a good place to work. Theoretically they could vote to sell, but I think that would be unlikely since they would be giving up a lot. But don't get me wrong, I'd prefer a crown corporation than a foreign grocer.
Mountain Equipment ~~Coop ~~ Company is a sad example of a coop that got sold pretty much out from under it's membership.
I'd posit the best option would be a crown corporation operated at arm's length, for the reasons you cite about MTS (and Potash, and Telus, and Petro Canada, etc, etc.) so that the company could remain solvent, but would be relatively immune from the neoliberal addiction to public/private partnerships.
MEC was not a workers' co-op though. It was a members' co-op and I don't even know what the voting structure was - whether it was one member one vote or something else. Simply saying co-op is kinda meaningless but I think the original comment mentioning it meant a workers' co-op, one-person-one-vote. That's a specific configuration that creates a democratic workplace which has been shown to be resilient. It mitigates bad decisions being done by a small exec team. I certainly mean this when I say co-op.
I'm mostly in agreement, and would prefer worker-owned co-ops over crown corporations in theory, my only issue is one of scale, and that's unfortunately where a crown corp wins out, unless UFCW starts opening union co-ops across the country to compete with Loblaws.
Which they should, but UFCW doesn't have the guts to try
My main issue with that is that food availability, preferences, regulations, and suppliers vary wildly from city to city, let alone province to province.
A provincial crown corp might be able to pull it off, a national one couldn't.
A national crown corp could pull it off just as well as a national private corp like Loblaws could
I disagree; loblaws is under no pressure to standardize between provinces and sub-brands, a national crown corp would be.
I.E. Nobody cares if potatoes are a different price in different loblawses or no-frillses; but it would be a grand grievance, real or precived, of potatoes in Toronto were cheaper than PEI.