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

IntroductionThis paper is part of a larger research study on the Aboriginal co-operative movement (A Reporton Aboriginal Co-operatives in Canada: Current Situation and Potential for Growth). The studywas initiated by the Canadian Co-operative Association (CCA) and le Conseil canadien de lacoopération (CCC). The objective of the study was to build knowledge and awareness about thecurrent state and contributions of Aboriginal co-operatives to regional and communitydevelopment. The present paper has been developed as a background paper for the completestudy. It focuses mainly on key measures of socio-economic performance of Aboriginal cooperatives.ContentThe paper is organized as follows: a short description of the data and a discussion on the meaningof an aboriginal co-op are examined in the introductory section. After describing the formationprocess of Aboriginal co-ops (section 1), a general overview of Aboriginal co-ops is presented(section 2). This section looks at the geographic and sectoral distribution of Aboriginal co-ops, aswell as the profile of a typical Aboriginal co-op. The way Aboriginal co-ops are organized(within their federations) is examined in the third section. A comprehensive trend analysis (1993-1997) follows (section 4), where major social and economic variables are reviewed. Since thecore of Aboriginal co-ops is made up of consumer co-ops, section 5 is dedicated to consumer coops.Whenever possible, comparison with both the Canadian consumer co-ops and the retailsector is carried out to give the reader an idea of the relative performance of Aboriginal consumerco-ops. There is a large concentration of Aboriginal co-ops in the Northwest Territories andNunavut. In section 6, we examine some of the socio-economic variables of Aboriginal co-ops inthese two Territories. Lastly (section 7), we put forward the shortcomings of this paper andprovide some ideas about future research in this field.MethodologyThe Co-operatives Secretariat relies on its own database to conduct studies on Canadian cooperatives,hereafter co-ops.64