By Kenzie Love Whatever their area of expertise, small businesses today often face an uphill battle when it comes to competing against large corporations whose resources are difficult to match. But Wayfinders Business Co-operative of Edmonton is trying to make this competition a little easier by creating an environment where small businesses, freelancers and others … Wayfinders Co-op Helps Small Businesses Forge a Common Path
By Kenzie Love Many bookkeepers face an unappealing choice between the lack of autonomy in working for a large firm and the hassles associated with going it on their own. Launched in April of 2020, Saskatchewan’s Ambient Bookkeeping aims to provide its members with greater control over their labour than is typical in the sector … Ambient Bookkeeping Offers a Winning Formula for Any Balance Sheet
By Kenzie Love In 2012, three alumni from Vancouver Island University’s Green Building & Renewable Energy Program, inspired by the publicity surrounding the International Year of the Co-op, decided to create a worker co-op of their own: a renewable energy installer that would combine their skill sets while meeting the triple bottom line. The result … Viridian Energy Co-operative Spreads the Warmth of Community
By Kenzie Love Founded in 2010, SolarShare is Canada’s largest renewable energy co-op. The Co-op owns and operates commercial-scale solar systems throughout Ontario. Once the systems are completed and generating revenue, they are refinanced with community investment—Solar Bonds—from over 2,000 members. Investors in Solar Bonds are also members of the Co-op who are eligible to … Future Looks Bright for SolarShare
By Kenzie Love One of the first certified organic farms in BC’s Fraser Valley, Glorious Organics began with a group of farmers who seized an opportunity to supply the Northwest Territories pavilion at Expo 86 in Vancouver with a then-novel product: pre-cut salads. The concept was successful enough that the farmers decided they could make … Glorious Organics Values Co-operation, Communication, and Community
By Kenzie Love Oasis Lavenders Cooperative is a working farm, but as its name would suggest, it’s also a refuge of sorts. Located in the town of Summerland in BC’s Okanagan Valley, the traditional unceded territory of the syilx/Okanagan people, the farm offers visitors a multisensory experience, while at the same time providing a corridor … Oasis Lavenders Cooperative Treats the Senses and Nourishes the Soul
By Kenzie Love Long before she even knew about worker co-ops, Danielle Turpin wanted to launch one. After 16 years as a personal support worker, Turpin had had enough of the lack of autonomy, exploitative working conditions, and inadequate staffing that characterized much of the sector. She envisioned a different approach, one where staff and … Home Care Workers’ Co-op Proves There’s a Better Way
By Kenzie Love As a director with the Capital Health Region in Halifax in the early 2000s, Linda Best gained a new awareness of food-related health issues affecting Nova Scotians, among them the declining amount of food being produced in the province. This knowledge spurred her to convene a food summit in 2009, and ultimately … FarmWorks Investment Co-operative Promotes Healthy Farms, Healthy Food
By Hannah Rackow For coopérative Tënk in Montreal, bringing lesser-known documentaries to audiences across Canada is both a passion and a mission. Florence Lamothe, co-founder and general manager of the co-op, explains that “the documentary is a rather under-circulated, under-loved and under-financed medium and cinematographic genre these days.” Tënk aims to address that gap by … coopérative Tënk Celebrates Documentaries
By Kenzie Love When the founders of Together We’re Bitter opened shop six years ago in Kitchener, Ontario, they wanted to create something that would make their surrounding community, in cofounder Alex Szaflarska’s words, “a little bit more interesting and a little bit more fun.” And what better way to do that, they concluded, than … Together We’re Bitter (TWB) Crafts Community