Aboriginal Co-operatives in Canada - Centre for the Study of Co ...

A P P E N D I X I ~In order to meet this challenge, ACL consolidated operations and moved its headquarters fromYellowknife to the less expensive city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, and sold several buildings.These decisions helped reduce operating costs by more than one-third. In October 1986 theGovernment of the Northwest Territories wrote off more than $1.4 million in debt owed byACL. Many member co-ops organized aggressive membership drives to ensure the survival ofco-operatives in the territory. ACL has regained financial stability and is set to continuegrowing in the future.Its minimal financial resources created difficulties for ACL and its members in raising funds tomeet the capital needs of member co-ops. To deal with this situation, the federal and territorialgovernments provided $10.2 million in capital contributions to the Northwest Territories CooperativeBusiness Development Fund in 1986. The fund is itself a co-operative, owned andcontrolled by Northwest Territories co-ops. Loans are made available to member co-ops forexpansion, refinancing existing debt, and short-term financing for annual resupply inventory.Interest from the loans goes into the fund and patronage dividends are issued to its members.For example, for every dollar of income received by the fund in 1989, 64¢ was issued aspatronage dividends. There have been no loan defaults in the history of the fund, which grewto $11.4 million in 1989.Northwest Territories co-operatives are clearly an important source of revenue and employmentfor Northerners, with revenues of $44.6 million in 1989. In 1989, ownership by individualsin their local co-operatives was at 27.4 percent, which indicates a reasonable levelof equity invested in the co-operative movement in the Northwest Territories.On an individual basis, the Ikaluktutiak Co-op has built up a healthy group of successfulbusinesses. As previously mentioned, the fishery was the first co-operative endeavour. It ledthe way for the construction of the hotel by local labour in the mid-1970s and then the retailoutlet in 1981.Bill Lyall was hired by the board of directors in 1974 to manage the co-op, improve services,and counter pilferage. At that time, Bill had closed his taxi company because he had beenrecently elected as a member of the territorial legislative assembly. He recalls, “We only hadfour meetings a year in those days so I had lots of time on my hands to get involved with theco-op.”Bill has taken an active role in the community at the local, regional, territorial, and nationallevel. He is president of the local co-op. He represents six communities at the ACL boardmeetings and sits as president of the board. He is also president of the territorial Co-operativeBusiness Development Fund. Bill sits on the board of Tuttavik, a joint-venture between ACL292 ~