Article content material continued
It’s the member-owners of MEC who must be granted the prospect to determine what the long run ought to maintain for MEC, whether or not it’s deciding to 1) liquidate some or all the enterprise and its property and distribute these proceedings equitably amongst member-owners or 2) to reinvest all or a few of these proceedings into the event of a extra streamlined, related and profitable enterprise that continues to fulfil the co-operative’s mission and imaginative and prescient.
A 3rd chance is that the member-owners are offered with a proposal to promote MEC to Kingswood. Member-owners might very properly select this feature too. That is what democracy is meant to seem like inside a co-operative.
Greater than ever earlier than, Canadians must be seeking to the co-operative mannequin as a imaginative and prescient of a brand new and extra resilient financial system. Co-operatives at the beginning exist to learn the individuals who depend on their services, not a single particular person or household nor a scattering of absentee buyers and shareholders.
Presently of great financial and social uncertainty, sustaining and growing Canada’s co-operative financial system is a path towards certainty, resilience and a brand new imaginative and prescient of what’s potential. There’s nothing that leaves me with extra certainty and confidence in our shared future than being one among 14,000 homeowners of my co-operative grocery retailer in Nelson, or being one among hundreds of homeowners of my co-operative credit score union, or being one among 5 million homeowners of my Mountain Tools Co-op.
Jon Steinman, MEC Member No. 40480519, is the creator of Grocery Story: The Promise of Meals Co-ops within the Age of Grocery Giants, and previous board director and president of Kootenay Co-op.