Presenter:  Mr. Jean-Pierre Girard (Lecturer at UQAM)

Presented at: GSEF 2016 Montreal

Organisation:  Coop Les 4 pôles (SSE organization)

Date: September 7, 2016

Contacts:  jpg282000@yahoo.ca

Summary :

In Québec, over 60% of new cooperatives are in the form of solidarity cooperatives. One of their defining characteristics is their capacity to associate different stakeholders rather than having a single status of members, like in the case of consumer cooperatives, making this organizational model extremely appealing to local service providers requiring the mobilization of the civil society. In Québec, municipalities are forbidden to become members of a cooperative, except for cooperatives in the wind energy sector. However, this constraint does not prevent municipalities from collaborating with these cooperatives.
The case of the Coopérative de Solidaritéles 4 Pôles, with corporate and individual members, will be presented. Finally, is it possible to identify ways to improve governance and to create organizational innovations for these cooperatives?