A shift in US bank policy. A demonstration in Greece. A tsunami in Japan. These types of events can have profound effects on the economic well-being of Canadian communities. In such a heavily globalized environment, it may seem that only large corporations with access to transnational resources can operate successfully, but Canadian co-operatives demonstrate that this is not the case. Drawing on the results of a large research project that examined co-operatives in communities from coast to coast to coast, Co-operative Canada reveals how Canadians are collectively responding to the forces of globalization through local, community-owned enterprises.
Brett Fairbairn is a professor in the Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of Saskatchewan specializing in democratic governance and history. He is also Fellow in Co-operative Thought and Ideas at the University's Centre for the Study of Co-operatives. Nora Russell is the publications/communications officer at the Centre for the Study of Co-operatives at the University of Saskatchewan. They are co-editors of Co-operative Membership and Globalization.
Contributors: Leslie H. Brown, Mario Carrier, William D. Coleman, Mitch Diamantopoulos, Rob Dobrohoczki, Isobel M. Findlay, Murray Fulton, Patrick Gingras, Jean-Pierre Girard, Jason Heit, Geneviève Langlois, Lou Hammond Ketilson, and Jorge Sousa