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

to 50 incorporations (in the 1990s).This pattern of incorporationsFigure 1.3 Number of Incorporations of Aboriginal Coopsin the NWTwas not matched in theNWT 5 , where the big wave25of incorporations happened2120in the 1960s. It seems that16the pattern in the NWT is the15opposite. Co-ops were very1211popular in the NWT due to10specific programs targeted at5northern regions in the 1960s(and to a lesser extent, in the01960s 1970s 1980s 1990s1970s). While AboriginalDecade of Incorporationco-ops in general seem toraise less interest in the 1990s, it is not the case for NWT Aboriginal co-ops, where the interest isstill present: there was no apparent change in the number of incorporations between the 1980sand the 1990s.Number of Co-opsThe newly formed co-ops (i.e. 50 incorporations in the 1990s) are mainly concentrated in thehandicraft and arts sector (10 new co-ops), the consumer retail sector (8 new co-ops), the feedersector (5 new co-ops), and the housing sector (5 new co-ops). Other new co-ops were in theservice sector, such as health and recreation. It is not surprising to find very few marketing coops,since these are often synonymous with agricultural co-ops. By comparison, at the Canadianlevel, the newly formed (small) businesses are concentrated in the retail sector (19.8%), thebusiness services (18.5%) and the computer services (17.2%) 6 .Aboriginal peoples are less likely to own a (traditional) business than other Canadians (Table1.1). There is about 27% more owners (per 100 000 inhabitants) within the Canadian populationthan within the Aboriginal community. But Aboriginal co-ops are relatively (i.e. compared toAboriginal population) more common than other co-ops (everything else being equal): for every100 000 people, there are about 10% (or 3) more Aboriginal co-ops than other co-ops. This result5 The NWT Included the territory of Nunavut before March 1999.6 These data are extracted from the GDSourcing’s 1998 Survey of New Small Business Intentions.http://www.gdsourcing.com/1998Survey.htm.68